The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China, originally uploaded by adelie.

What's a visit to China without the Great Wall?
I jumped at my first chance to walk on this magnificent piece of history. We hired a taxi driver for the day, to take us to two different sections of the wall: Simatai and Jinshaling, which are about 130km northeast from the center of Beijing. With our taxi driver skilled at passing every car that was on his way, be it windy and narrow, we could fit the visit in one day, despite having had to hold onto our lives with the broken seat belts.

Pictured here is the Jinshaling section of the Great Wall which was surprisingly deserted of tourists. There was one local who seemed to be collecting plastic bottles from the trashcans in each watch tower. Who knows how many miles he has been walking all day?

Looking at what seems to be a never-ending stretches of the wall across ranges of mountains really does make one feel so small, awed at the work of human hands that have built it thousands of years ago.

Beijing, China
July 2009