We're doing two days on the Great Wall -- each day on a different section.

Yesterday (Monday) we did the Badaling section, the one most tourists go to. There is a city bus that goes there and the round-trip of 2 hours cost us less than $ 2.00. Admission to the wall is about $ 6.00 and a trolley up to the top was another $ 8.00.


The Chinese guide on the bus headed us to the trolley, which took us up to the wall itself. That was a good idea, because the hike from the trolley stop back down was a long one and took us several hours. The hardest part was coming down, where there are steep sections with no steps, only paved stones that were somewhat wet, and we held on tight to the rail, as you'll see in the photos. I finally decided the easiest way was to repel backwards holding on to the rail.

The biggest crowds were on the first part of the trip, where the wall was a bit more level.

The photos are in the order of the hike. We hiked all of the wall that you can see in the second photo, including the part that goes down to the right way in the distance.

It was a lot of fun. Benjie mentioned that everyone there was having a good time.

DAY TWO
Tuesday we took a formal tour to the Mitianyu section of the Great Wall northeast of Beijing. It is more forested and less visited than the Badaling section. There are other sections one has to hire a private car to get to.

We saw our first chestnut trees. Two ladies were harvesting chestnuts with a bamboo pole. We also saw chestnuts in the sidewalk markets for the first time.