This is the first of a two-part series about my trip to China! I headed off on a charity trek along the Great Wall of China and found out that it’s a lot more challenging than many might expect...
Stretching 6000km in a dotted line across China, the Great Wall was begun in the 5th Century BC. As it snakes across the mountains it conjures up a sense of history, which is difficult to grasp until you have had the opportunity to experience it.
My trek across this sleeping reptile was very varied, we passed through woodland and terraced farmland, following the contours of the beautiful hills and mountains in remote areas north of Beijing. We followed old sections as well as restored sections with smooth flagstones and lots of steps - both with very different difficulties... jostling with crowds of tourists and school children on the restored sections or navigating crumbling stones, no side walls and sharp drops down steep mountainsides on the old wall.
The challenge was physically demanding but we were well rewarded with some fantastic scenery, breathtaking views and a fascinating first-hand insight into a rich culture and history.
Days one and two were filled with travelling. I took a mid-morning flight from Belfast City to London Heathrow with bmi... when travelling with so much gear (liquids, walking poles etc), all of which had to be checked in, it was much cheaper to travel with an airline who included a generous checked-in baggage allowance in the price of the flight. I had a couple of hours to kill at Heathrow before meeting with the rest of the Skyline group, so after a quick walk-round to find out where our meeting point was located I parked my luggage at an empty table in one of the cafes and grabbed a coffee and a hot filled roll. Food glorious food! When I ate that roll, little did I know it would be the last piece of proper bread I would see for 10 days!
It wasn't long before I spotted some people hanging around near the meeting point who looked like they were going on a trek... dressed in walking trousers, heavy walking boots and a warm fleece/coat (similar to myself). I went to join them and found out, after some introductions round the little circle, that we were all signed up to the Geat Wall of China trek with Skyline.
The group leaders showed up pretty promptly and got us all checked in, leaving us with instructions on what gate to meet at and what time. The key rule... DO NOT MISS THE FLIGHT.
I was very kindly given entrance to the Emirates Lounge and enjoyed a lovely cup of tea, some sandwiches and sweet treats in comfort, away from the hustle and bustle of the airport lounges/shopping areas. There is nothing more pleasant than enjoying a cup of tea (from a proper cup with a saucer!) and reading a book in peace before a long flight. I'm not a great flier so that little quiet time chilled me right out.
To be honest I don't remember much about the flight from Heathrow to Dubai as I spent the majority of it sleeping, with small intervals of eating. I love a full service airline... that is the life!
We only had 30 minutes between landing at Dubai and taking off for Beijing so we had to be off the plane pretty sharpish and run through the connecting baggage checks to make it which, thankfully, we did. I spent the Dubai-Beijing leg of the journey much as I had spent the Heathrow-Dubai leg... sleeping with intervals of eating, although I did manage to squeeze in a movie too.
We landed in Beijing on day two of our trek (because of the time difference) just as the sun was setting, and the journey to our hotel (The Dong Fang) wasn't very long. Everyone was surprisingly hungry I say suprisingly because we had all had two meals on each flight... four meals in total already), and the hotel had prepared a traditional Peking Duck welcome feast for us all. The Skyline staff told us to enjoy it as the food for the rest of the trip was "unpredictable", to which we all laughed... we weren't laughing two days later when we thought we may have unknowingly eaten squirrel in one of the villages!
After our feast of proper traditional Chinese food - I've always loved my local Chinese takeaway, but I've realised nothing can beat freshly cooked Chinese food, at home the takeaways use A LOT of sugar - some of the group (me included) decided to go off in search of beer... a local beer to be exact, and we found it... just down the road from the Dong Fang, yay! It was lovely... cool, crisp, refreshing and only 50p... we splurged on two each before turning in for the night, deciding it was best not to blow all our budgets on the first night.
Day three came quicker than I expected, but after all the sleep I got on the flights I was fresh and raring to go. Breakfast at the Dong Fang was another feast... a buffet of eggs (cooked several ways), meats, fried rolls, sweet bread, cereals and sticky pastries. This was were I realised chopsticks were not just used at dinner! I was pretty confident with chopsticks before I went to China so I coped okay with my scrambled egg and sausage... although some of the group gave in and asked if there was a possibility of a knife and fork (by the end of the trip and knife and fork was something completely unheard of, we were all pros).
I quickly learned that chopsticks and small rice bowls are the staple tableware. The Chinese don't use plates. The breakfast at the Dong Fang was an exception, with it's buffet style it was highly Westernised and as such we had the option of plates and cutlery. The general Chinese custom is to have everything put on the table in large bowls, each person then spoons some rice into their own small bowl. Everyone shares food from the larger 'share' dishes of meat and vegetables and eats them straight from the dish, no need to plate up!
I was very pleased when I impressed the waitress of the Chinese restaurant I visited when on a family holiday in Tenerife last month - I asked for chopsticks and a rice bowl... and thanked her in Chinese. Perhaps showing-off just a tad!
We had no time to spare after breakfast as it was straight back to the room for our baggage. The trek was imminent! We made the morning journey out of Beijing, heading for Huangyaguan and caught our first glimpse of the Great Wall ahead of us. We arrived at our accommodation in Huangyaguan, it was a monastry-style hostel at the foot of a mountain, the Great Wall running high along the mountain top... our rooms were arranged in a square with a courtyard in the middle and we could see the Great Wall high on the mountain from the grassy courtyard.
We were assigned a room buddy, who we would be sharing rooms with throughout the trek. My room buddy was Jeannie, a lovely lady who had signed up to the trek to raise money for Breast Cancer after battling with the disease herself, a very brave lady indeed!
After checking into our rooms and enjoying some lunch, we set off to the first section of the trek, which was to give us a good indication of the challenges ahead. The trekking time for the day was estimated at around three to four hours. The Huangyanguan section of the wall was originally built in 557 AD, and was repaired for the first time in the Ming Dynasty with bricks and for the second time in 1985. This section is noted for being particularly stunning because of it's water towers, which have all been restored to their former magestic glory. We completed this section of the trek in two hours, well under the suggested time and were pretty pleased with ourselves.
Later in the trek, as we progressed onto the old wall, we realised why we made such light work of our first trek day... it was smooth, with side walls and didn't crumble as you walked, oh how I longed for side walls!
Since we finished our trek sooner than expected there was time for a nap/beer in the courtyard before dinner. I chose the nap... strange but true! Dinner that night had been arranged in a local restaurant. We did a whip round of our table for a kitty and took advantage of the local beverages.
Dinner was lovely, sweet and sour pork like you have never tasted from your local takeaway, beef and potato stew, kung po chicken loaded with chillis and peanuts, light as a feather rice and several other vegetable and meat dishes.
After dinner we all headed outside and pulled up chairs round the campfire... the nights in China can be cold, very cold, so we all pulled our chairs close to the campfire and dipped into the kitty for another round. We ended the night with a game of campfire charades.
Day four saw us up early for a breakfast of steamed flat sweet dumplings (kind of like pancakes) and jam... there was also some boiled eggs. We loaded our bags onto the bag bus (which took all our large bags to the next accommodation, we took smaller bags with our daily essentials with us) and headed out for the second part of the trek. We hiked up the mountain and along a restored section of the wall. By mid morning we had reached the bottom of Heavens Ladder, a steep (and I mean steep) climb of over 200 steps. This was a tough section, but it's well worth the effort as the views from the top are out of this world... I guess that's why they call it Heavens Ladder - a view from the heavens over the Yanshan Mountains and the region below.
After a well deserved breather at the top (and designating a ‘rest-room’ spot for ladies and men – this was new to us all, but necessary) we headed on up the mountain further to join the top of the ridge where our path then wound it’s way around sections of the old wall. Some parts of this section of the wall were in very poor condition and impossible to walk on so we followed a narrow path along the side, but other parts were well enough still to walk on, and so we did… after climbing up some wall rubble to reach the top! This was the first taste I had of standing on a very narrow 10ft high (it could well have been higher) wall with no side walls, completely open to the elements and to the steep drop down a mountain on either side. This part of the wall was in poor condition but still walkable, the trick was to keep your head down and keep on moving, if you stop or look about you, there is the chance of some vertigo! I have never suffered from vertigo or a fear of heights before, but that day I certainly did!
In the afternoon we began our decent, winding our way down the narrow path on the mountain side. We stopped for lunch when we reached a small rocky clearing… our packed lunch for the trek consisted of the same thing each day, four slices of bread with a small bit of cheese and ham in each… and a banana or other fruit. To be honest I wasn’t 100 per cent keen on the sandwiches some days, but on others they were lovely! On the days the sandwiches weren’t so good I tucked into one of the snickers-type chocolate bars that I had brought along with me. Everyone seemed to have brought along a multipack of some sort of chocolate snack or energy bar… and when we all ran out we had to rely on Eric and his never-ending supply of Snickers bars – lifesavers!
When we reached the bottom of the mountain we made our way through the valley to the village of Longmen where we would be spending the night at local family houses. The family were lovely and did everything they could to make us welcome and comfortable. The accommodation was basic, and we bunked four to a room, pairing up with two other room buddies. After a day of trekking and makeshift ‘rest rooms’ we were all glad to see proper toilet facilities… you would be shocked to learn that toilet facilities all over China are normally a hole in the ground where you… ahem… squat. This includes all the public loos too! These toilets had obviously been fitted with Western visitors in mind.
Everyone was ravenous that night and we all tucked in to the now familiar fayre… including beef and potato stew, spicy white fish, kung po chicken, chilli vegetables, sweet and sour pork, an unidentified meat (no one could recognise the taste) and boiled rice. We noticed the beds around the side of the room we were eating in and realised that this must be where the family slept. It was very humbling to see an old man just walk across the room and lie on one of the beds to sleep while we ate. He was completely undisturbed by it all.
The family had set up a campfire for anyone who wanted to sit up and have a beer. I was absolutely beat that night, so headed straight to my bed with a full stomach and a weary body. The estimated trek time for the day had been 5 – 7 hours… we took 9, no wonder I was tired! There was no heat in the room so I dug out my sleeping bag (something I hadn’t yet had to use) and was glad to snuggle down into it’s warmth, like a giant caterpillar.
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