Beijing adventure travel guide
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Beijing Highlights (Edit)
Great Wall of ChinaA trip to China without walking on the Great Wall is not an anthentic China experience.
The Great Wall, so far as its gigantic scale and difficulties in its construction are concerned, is beyond doubt a civil engineering project of defense, the greatest of its kind in ancient China. It can certainly be regarded as one of the great wonders ever wrought in the history of mankind. The Great Wall, a glory of the Chinese nation, is the symbol of the ancient culture and the long-standing history of China. Baptized by nature for thousands of years, the Great Wall has witnessed the rises and falls of innumerable dynasties and changes on the earth, yet is still ranging proudly in the east of the world. Today, the Great Wall, however, as a work of military defense against harassment and invasion from without, has become things of the past, yet instead it is playing a role in bridging up the friendship between the Chinese people and the people of the rest of the world.
The Great Wall, snaking along the north of China with its starting point from the Old Dragon Head of the Shanhai Pass at the seaside in the east, stretches westwards over a distance of 10,000 li (1 kilometer= 2 lis). It crosses three provinces, two municipalities and two autonomous regions. Its actual length totals about 6,300 kilometers, an equivalent of about 3,915 miles.
During the time of Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.), all the principal states had the walls built in the bordering areas of the territories in order to defend themselves and against the infringement from the neighboring states. And to ward off the harassment by the Huns (an ancient nomadic tribe in China) from the north, the three states of Qin, Zhao and Yan had high walls and fortresses built along their northern frontiers. This is the origin of the present-day Great Wall. In 221 B.C., the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty unified the whole China by defeating the six other ducal states. To prevent from disturbing and attacking by the Huns, the emperor gave order to link up all the walls built by the former ducal states along the northern frontiers, thereby forming the world famous "10,000-li Great Wall". The succeeding dynasties after the Qin kept on the work of maintenance and repairs or having parts reconstructed again and again. The project carried out in the Han and Ming dynasties were the greatest on scale in the old days of China.
The Great Wall is the traditional defensive project through ages. It mainly consists of passes, walls, watchtowers and beacon towers. As the wall inched across the Chinese wilderness, its builders were forced to rely upon local materials. Some wall was built with tamped-earth, some with stone, some with tamped mixture of reed, red willow, and sands, and some with bricks outside and stuffed earth and sands inside. Most of the walls we see today are Ming walls, which were mainly made of stone and bricks. Watchtowers are the key parts of the military construction. Very close to each other, brick towers could be two storyed or 3 storyed. On the top of the tower, there is a small room, which is surrounded by battlements. The watchtower can be used to station soldiers or store food and weapons. Thousands of passes stretch along the Great Wall. Some are between the mountains, some betwent the mountains and rivers, and some between the mountains and sea. Passes are the gateways of transportation and become the strongholds during the war. Beacon towers are the communicational facilities. Emergent military messages could be delivered by beacon tower in a short time.
The Great Wall snakes from east to west, and looks like a dragon on the Oriental. Presently there are five sections of the Great Wall opened to public in Beijing, including Badaling section, Juyong Pass section, Mutianyu section, Jinshanling section and Simatai section.
If you have a tight schedule, go to Badaling section which is 60 km away northwest of Beijing, and it's easy to catch a public bus or participate a city tour at the hotel. You will pass by Juyong Pass section on the way to Badaling section. It takes a whole day to go to Simatai and Jinshanling sections, which are the remote, authentic and beautiful parts of the wall. A trekking tour from Jinshanling to Simatai within 4 hours is very popular and rewarded. Mutianyu section is 60 km northeast of Beijing, which is a good alternative for those who don't want to visit Badaling and also want to save time.
