There have been a few things I have seen on tv and thought…. “Cor blimey that looks cool. Have to try that.” And the luge is one of those. Racing at speeds up to 140 km/hour with a 5 G-force down a shiny tube seems like a heap of fun. And so it was with some surprise that I clocked that the alpines seemed to have been moved to the Great Wall of China- my 193rd place to visit in the 1000 places to see before you die book. The choice of going up to the top of the Great Wall (or indeed down) using a ski lift…or coming down on a toboggan in a shiny steel tube, seemed rather surreal given I was in the sticks of China and there was cherry blossoms in the fields rather than snow.
Suffice to say, after climbing the Great Wall, I mounted one of these black, tiny sleds with a rudimentary brake in the centre and wound my way down some rather steep bends. I was half expecting to pass under giant golden arches and have vouchers for McDonald’s given to me by the guards monitoring the speed on the tube. At the least however, upgrading to the luge as my new adventure sport seems not to be my forte given some rude tourist in the ski lift above my head screamed out “use the accelerator” at one point.
Anyhow, to the Wall. An ongoing engineering feat that started from the 5th century BC and continued to the 16th century to protect China from those Mongol Huns. It is rather a sad state of affairs to think the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (who also commissioned the Terracotta Warriors) left such treasures for subsequent civilisations….whereas the last Emperor of China, poor Puyi, left to the world a few gardening gloves.
Anyhow, a bit like the broken warriors, not much of the Wall that Huang built remains, the majority remaining is from the Ming Dynasty. It roughly stretches from the sea all the way along the northern edge of China for some 6,200 km- in fact given natural barriers such as rivers and a few trenches- it hits 8,851 km. It sad to think that a good portion of the Wall has gone- removed for expansion, graffitied, covered by sandstorms, or used as a source of building materials.
Over a million workers died building the wall and you can see why given that each stone was over 2 feet in depth and length and had to be hand cut and lugged up to the top of the very extreme mountain range.
In the end, the Wall proved to be of little deterrent when a Ming border general opened the gates at one section as he was disgruntled with the Chinese rulers. And so the Manchu invasion swept in, overthrew Beijing, defeated the ruling Shun Dynasty, and started their own Qing Dynasty. At that point, the Wall fell into disrepair as there was no need for it. Reminder in life that there is always someone who decides to piss inside the tent!
There is about seven sections of the wall most tourists go to- I went to the Mutianyu section which runs for about 2.25 km, as I was intrigued to see the nearby Ming tombs- two only of which had been excavated.
Now to remove a myth- the Great Wall is not visible from space. This rumour started in the 1700’s but the problem is- local materials were used. So in fact, the Wall is this rather disappointing shabby grey, indistinguishable from the grey soils of the mountains that it sits. It is highly unphotogenic- as most walls are. Given that the widest sections are only 9m wide, it is invisible from space as reported as it would appear about the same width of a human hair viewed from 3.5 miles away…. so the web tells me. It is barely visible- and even then only under perfect conditions- at a height of 160 km …but then so are many other man made objects at this height.
Anyhow, I have walked the Wall and like all tourists who have done so…yes I bought the t-shirt saying so as well!!
Should it be in the 1000 places to see before you die book. Well its not much to look at, its a bit of a schlepp to get there, but given that there will never be a wall built like this in history again....yes!
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