Wonder Wall When it comes to visiting the Great Wall of China, a little context goes a long way, writes Tom O’Malley Photography Ewen Bell great wall 91 aodou, baodou,” calls the the end of the Qing Dynasty. And it has a train attendant, moving rather special stop along its route: Badaling. through the carriage with About 60km northwest of Beijing, Badaling a single bag of microwave is a pass through a high gorge in the Jundu popcorn on a silver tray. Mountains. Historically a strategic portal “BThere are no takers. Outside the window, between the fertile lands of the capital and the Beijing outskirts roll by, a hinterland the more arid plains beyond, it has been of highways, light industry and the mournful called the ‘Key to Northern China’ and is the skeletons of half-built apartments framed site for what has become the defining section against a grey winter sky. of the Great Wall. I’m riding the ‘S’ train that connects As the train ascends into the foothills, we get downtown Beijing to the county of Yanqing a glimpse of battlements perched precariously in the far reaches of the municipality. This on rocky cliffs. There have been numerous suburban route is notable for two things: eras of Great Wall building throughout China’s Along the watchtower the great wall it follows the old Imperial Peking to history, but most of the wall that endures is over 20,000km Zhangjiakou railway, the first railway around Beijing, like the Badaling section, in length designed and built by the Chinese towards dates to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). “vast TRACTS OF waLL havE BEEN LOST TO THE ravagES OF TIMe” great wall great wall 92 93 The Ming built or rebuilt atop older (walls are only as reliable as their gatekeepers, stretches of wall to form an undulating, after all), conquered Beijing and established overlapping defensive barrier stretching from the Great Qing, China’s last imperial dynasty. ocean to desert, shielding the northern reaches Although the Qing had some use for the of their vast territory from the ‘barbarians’ – Ming walls and added a few of their own, the the Mongols, Manchu and other pastoral greatest era of wall building in the history people. The absolute length, including every of mankind had come to an end, and the branch and tributary, of the Ming Great Wall battlements were eventually abandoned, their has been put at about 8,000km; a five-year unmanned bricks and stone remaining at the archaeological survey of every single bit of mercy of scavengers. wall within today’s expanded PRC borders, existing or long vanished, from around 20 wall-mart dynasties (aside from the most recent Qing), Badaling too had fallen into ruin, but enough put the total at over 20,000km. of the wall remained intact that, with the The reality is that vast tracts of wall formation of the People’s Republic of China have been lost to the ravages of time and in the 1950s, it was decided the Great Wall at civilisation, and what remains exist are in a Badaling should be the site of the first major state of precarious disrepair. For logistical wall restoration since the Ming Dynasty. In the reasons, the Great Wall was fashioned, mid-’50s, and again in 1987, two restoration chameleon-like, from whatever materials were projects resurrected around 8km of wall and at hand. Along China’s arid northern plains, more than 20 watchtowers. Hundreds of foreign this equated mostly to tamped earth. The heads of state including Nixon, Thatcher, strategically critical upland sections around Gorbachev and Obama have smiled for the Beijing, amounting to around 600km of the cameras on its battlements, and hundreds of Ming Great Wall, were far sturdier, built millions of tourists, both Chinese and foreign, from local granite and bricks, lined with have huffed and puffed up its steep steps. watchtowers and often following the high The train attendant makes another pass as The memory remains some battlements ridgelines of mountains. we near our destination, but this time she’s have been restored, But despite the Ming’s mastery of wall selling tickets to something ominously called others remain in a defence, the Manchu found a way through the Circle Vision Great Wall Theatre. Yes, state of disrepair “TOURISTS CAN ONLY OFFICIALLY ACCESS A TINY FRACTION OF THE GREat wall” great wall great wall 94 95 Badaling offers far more than mere wall. Lan from subtropical Guangdong, visiting the Skip the queue The size of a modest North American ski Great Wall for the first time with his shivering other sections of the wall offer a less resort, it has a Starbucks, a KFC, and wife and young son. Marcus and Hilda, from crowded experience countless souvenir shops and snack Norway, are munching on processed sausages vendors. There are banks, the Badaling and sporting souvenir woolly hats. I chat with Hotel, a museum, the aforementioned theatre Samir, an IT Consultant from Hyderabad, and attraction, acres of car parks, a cable car, we are joined by two female students from camels to ride and Asian black bears to feed. Nanning in Guangxi Province, posing for Factor in the crowds (Badaling is famously photos together. swamped in holiday season) and the modern This concentration of visitors exacts a toll, of appearance of its restoration, and you course. The Great Wall may be many thousands approach what was described in a New York of kilometres long, but tourists can only Times article from 1985 as “too great an officially access a tiny fraction – probably less obtrusion of the present into the precincts than 50km – of the whole structure. Barely a of the past.” This is why the Western brick at Badaling is free of etched graffiti. As guidebooks tend to suggest visitors skip well as Badaling and Mutianyu, you can travel Badaling, a victim of its own fame, and instead further afield from Beijing to restored sections seek another officially sanctioned section of at Jinshanling, Simatai and Huanghuacheng. restored Great Wall: Mutianyu. You can view the Great Wall as it plunges Rebuilt in the early Ming Dynasty, and into the ocean at ‘Old Dragon’s Head’ in restored and opened in the 1980s to ease the Shanhaiguan. And if you’re a completionist, pressure on Badaling, Mutianyu is a lofty you might travel all the way west to Jiayuguan, 4km stretch of wall in a verdant mountain a lonely fortified outpost in the deserts of landscape. Though it too boasts cable cars Gansu province, the end of the Ming Great and gift shops, the crowds have never quite Wall and the final barrier between Chinese reached Badaling levels, the surrounding civilisation and the ‘outer darkness.’ villages are bucolic, and in low season you might have Mutianyu mostly to yourself. going wild Not so in Badaling. It’s a cold December Increasingly, China’s new breed of outdoors afternoon but the crenellated battlements jostle enthusiasts (and intrepid tourists) are with sightseers. I introduce myself to Xiao eschewing the official sections and seeking “ITS ROMANTIC vistas OF CRUMBLING STONE ARE A TEstamENT TO THE RISE AND faLL OF EMPIRES” great wall 96 out the ‘Wild Wall’, a phrase coined by British of empires and the perpetual ebb and flow Great Wall scholar William Lindesay to describe of power. The flipside is that these sections derelict battlements overgrown with vegetation can be dangerous; hiking boots extol further or eroded amidst desert – places like Dunhuang damage to the fragile structures, and to walk and Datong, tourist-free and a world away from here at all is, strictly speaking, illegal. Still, the elbow-to-elbow jollity of Badaling. if you’ve already seen the likes of Badaling Ready, sunset, go This is the Great Wall of the poetic and Mutianyu – or if their crowds simply dusk is the most popular time for imagination; its romantic vistas of crumbling don’t appeal – then this is the Wall for you. photo opportunities stone a moving testament to the rise and fall Just don’t expect popcorn. ◆ Walking the Wall five less-visited destinations worth seeking out Jiaoshan Jiankou Jinshanling Han Dynasty Great Earthwork Great Two-and-a-half hours A scenic mountain Probably the best Wall at Dunhuang Wall at Datong from Beijing by high- valley girdled on balance of accessibility, Over 1,000 years older Just a 30-minute taxi speed train, this is one three sides by what spectacular vistas than the Ming walls, this ride from the of the first mountains is arguably the most and visitor numbers is one of the most remote northern city of climbed by the Great picturesque, gravity- if coming from and ancient sections Datong, the eroded Wall in the east, just a defying stretch of Beijing, the Jinshanling of Great Wall, built to remains of a broad few kilometres from the Great Wall in China. section is only partially provide cover for the earthen mound ocean. Keep going up Clamber up through restored. From here Silk Road caravans. Little stretch into the past the restored section woodland to it’s possible to hike remains but humps of far distance across to the mountain’s Zhengbeilou, a east towards the clay packed with birch grassy plains. summit for stunning watchtower beloved by astonishingly steep twigs and a few lonely Entirely unprotected, views. On a clear day you amateur photographers. Simatai section. (Note: beacon towers. It feels like it’s little more than can follow the old line of From here it’s a two- Simatai has recently the end of the Earth – flat, a landscape quirk Wall through the town of hour hike downhill undergone restoration gravelly desert in every today, occasionally Shanhaiguan out to where along unrestored wall and may remain partly direction, hazy sun and cut through to give it meets the ocean.