This must be one of man's greatest and most awe-inspiring creations, ranking alongside the pyramids. To visit China, and to walk part of this amazing wall would be a wonderful experience.
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7 Wonders of the World Friday, July 11, 2008
On the 7th July last year (07.07.07) the The New7Wonders Foundation announced the list of The New 7 Wonders of the World. The list was the result of over 100 million votes from all over the world. The announcement took place in Lisbon in Portugal, at the Benfica Stadium.
Of the original list of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, only one now remains, the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt. The original 7 Wonders were: * Great Pyramid of Giza * Hanging Gardens of Babylon * Statue of Zeus at Olympia * Temple of Artemis at Ephesus * Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus * Colossus of Rhodes * Lighthouse of Alexandria
The new list, from New7Wonders, announced in Lisbon is as follows: * Pyramid at Chichén Itzá, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico * Christ The Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil * Roman Colosseum, Rome, Italy * Great Wall of China, China * Machu Picchu, Peru * Petra, Jordan * Taj Mahal, Agra, India
This means that there is one glaring omission from my list, being the Pyramid at Chichén Itzá. If I add this to my list, when complete it will mean that I have seen all Seven Wonders of the World.
So, as "Fly-By-Wire" in New Zealand has now closed down, as mentioned in the blog a couple of days ago here, I have now removed that from the 100 list, and replaced it with "Chichén Itzá, Mexico"
The other Finalists for the New7Wonders were as follows: * Acropolis of Athens, Athens, Greece * Alhambra, Granada, Spain * Angkor, Cambodia * Statues of Easter Island, Easter Island, Chile * Eiffel Tower, Paris, France * Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey * Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan * Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow, Russia * Neuschwanstein Castle, Schwangau, Germany * Pyramids of Giza, Egypt * Statue of Liberty, New York City, U.S.A. * Stonehenge, Amesbury, United Kingdom * Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia * Timbuktu, Mali
I have seen 4 of these, and have 3 more of them on my list, so there is still plenty of scope for something to add to my list after 100goals is finished!
Christmas crabs causing confusion!! Tuesday, October 27, 2009
My plans for the next month or so of this trip have always been a little vague, as they depend largely on the weather.
I fly down to Mexico on Thursday morning for a few days to see the Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead festivities, and then in November my travels take me to Southeast Asia, where I hope to see the Elephant Round Up, and hopefully actually ride an elephant too.
One of my other goals in that area is to see the migration of the red crabs on Christmas Island, which happens each year around November, but could occur at any time over a period of four months. The migration is dependent on two things. Firstly the beginning of the rainy season is what starts the crabs moving from the inland areas towards the coast. But mating and spawning are dictated by the phase of the moon, and are timed so that the females can spawn (drop their eggs into the water) at high tide on the new moon.
This year the two most likely dates for spawning are around 12th November, or 11th December. And my plans have had to remain flexible enough to be able to get to Christmas Island for either of these periods.
My rough plan has either been to go to Christmas Island first, then Thailand to see the elephants, then on to Australia, or if the crabs migrate later, see the elephants first, which is around the 20th November, then go to Christmas Island, and then from there direct to Perth.
I have been keeping in contact with Katrina at the Christmas Island Tourism Association, and just yesterday received from her an email update from the Christmas Island National Park.
Apparently there has been some rain in the last day or two, and crabs have started moving in large numbers, but there is now not enough time for them to spawn on the 12th November, and December is looking much more likely now.
So I think I can now start putting some plans into place. I have already booked my flight from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and arrive there on Friday 6th November. This was booked so that if necessary, I could have caught the flight from KL to Christmas Island on Saturday 7th, as there is only one flight per week to the island.
But now I have a fairly large hole on the calendar, from 6th November to around the 15th, when I have to be in Bangkok, in time to get to Surin for the Elaphant Round Up. What to do, I have been wondering?
And then, idly looking on the AirAsia website, I found that they do pretty cheap flights from KL to Beijing in China. A quick check of November temperature in Beijing revealed that it will be cold, as low as freezing overnight, but not too bad during the days.
And so I made a decision, flexible as always, to go and spend a week or so up in China, and visit the Great Wall. It's currently less than US$300 to get to Beijing and then back to KL, and I get to achieve a goal that I suspected might be alot more expensive to achieve.
Will I need a visa, I wonder? Better get on to that right away!! Down to the Chinese Embassy tomorrow!
Day One in Beijing. Monday, November 9, 2009
I have just woken up from one of the longest sleeps I think I have ever had. I slept a wonderfully rejuvinating 14 hours last night!!
My last day in Kuala Lumpur was pretty long. After going to see the KL Tower in the morning I had to check out of my room at midday. However, I managed to store my bags at the hostel for the rest of the day, and was able to sit around in the lounge there too. I spent some more time wandering the city, and at around 8pm collected my bags and caught the bus to the airport.
I had booked my cheap return to Beijing with budget airline AirAsia, who fly out of a different terminal, and arrived in plenty of time to check in for my 1am departure. However, foggy conditions in Tianjin, the destination airport near Beijing meant our flight was delayed until 3am. The seats in the waiting area were not at all comfortable - not much sleep to be had there.
Eventually we arrived at Tianjin at 9am, and I caught the shuttle to the main railway station, and at a small cafe nearby tried to figure out what I could have for breakfast. I am finding it similar to my visit to Japan here, as the Chinese writing is a complete mystery, and very few places have English translations. In the end, I opted for pointing at a picture of a tasty looking dish above the counter, and received a bowl of watery noodles with two fried eggs on top!
The train to Beijing is a marvel of modern technology, a non-stop luxury journey of half an hour at speeds up to 350 kph. At Beijing South Railway Station I found the subway easily, as signs are in English here too, and got on the correct train. However, I got off at the wrong stop, and my walk to the hostel I had booked bore no relevance to the map I had copied from the internet. In the end I gave up and caught a taxi, which cost me 13 yuan, or around $2.
Lancy lives in Beijing, and a while ago had been given an assignment by her English teacher to summarise an article about some crazy guy in Australia who had put his whole life up for sale on eBay! (Her words, not mine!) She had followed my adventures from there onto my 100 goals adventure, and had emailed me to offer to help me out in Beijing.
She and her friend Jenny were waiting for me at the hostel, and after dumping my bags we headed out for a wander around the local area. They took me around an area called Nan Luo Gu Xiang, where the narrow streets, or hutongs, were filled with locals, and quite a few tourists too. We ate all sorts of interesting foods from shop windows and street carts - spicy tofu pieces, sweet cakes, pork-filled dumplings, strange soups and hot sweet potatoes.
My first impressions of Beijing? It's cold here after coming from Malaysia. Temperature in the afternoon was around 12 deg C, but it drops to near freezing in the evening. It is a busy place, and apparently it gets busier, as Sunday afternoon is relatively quiet. It is, like Kuala Lumpur, a fascinating mixture of sleek modern and old traditional. Interesting sights, such as people playing chess or mah jong at street cafes. Strange and unusual foods.
I wandered happily soaking it all up and chatting with Lancy and Jenny, who were wonderful hosts. At times I would feel my head swim a little with tiredness, but it was all too new and exciting to miss out on. At one point I was suddenly hit by the realisation that I was in Beijing in China!! That happens to me every now and then as I travel, and sometimes am struck by exactly where I am or what I am doing.
Later in the evening the girls dropped me off at home again. It still amazes me how quickly I now start to refer to a new place as home, even though I had spent only a few minutes there. Wherever I lay my hat... The girls went to catch their bus, and after quickly checking my email, ten minutes later I was fast asleep on my bed!
Thanks to my wonderful guides, what a great introduction to this fascinating city.
Tian'anmen Square Tuesday, November 10, 2009
My first port of call yesterday was Jingshan Park, which is only a short walk from my hostel. There is a large hill with several temple buildings on top, which overlook the North Gate of the huge Forbidden City below, was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The hill was actually made from the earth removed to make the enormous moat around the Forbidden City.
Unfortunately the weather was cold and overcast, so the view was not as spectacular as I imagine it could be. I walked down to the gate of the Forbidden City, having to run the gauntlet of over-enthusiastic postcard sales people and potential guides, presumably unofficial.
Some of the signs here are very entertaining, the "Engrish" being a bit tricky to understand sometimes. At the entrance to the Forbidden City I was reminded: "Please be self-restraint and be a good tourist to mold a well-mannered imagination." Huh???
I decided to miss out on the Forbidden City, as time was already getting on, and instead decided to mold my well-mannered imagination by walking around the outside, eventually arriving at the very impressive Tian'anmen Square, apparently the world's largest city-centre public space.
There were a couple of the biggest TV displays I have ever seen celebrating 60 years of the People's Republic of China, and people wandered the wind-blown area admiring the statues of the heroes of the revolution.
I was amazed to realise that it is now 20 years since the Tian'anmen Square massacre, when an estimated 400 to 800 protesters were killed, in what would seem to be a somewhat heavy-handed government response when the tanks rolled into the square on the 4th June 1989. More information here: Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
Somewhat co-incidentally, China banned any internet access in May this year to sites such as Blogger, Facebook and YouTube, some suggest to prevent too much discussion of what happened 20 years ago.
This has made things very tricky for me, as I use Blogger for my blog, of course. I was mystified initially when I kept getting a blank page, but a quick Google search for "Blogger China" soon provided some answers. I tried a couple of the suggestions for how to work around the issue, but to no avail. Eventually I had to resort to plan B, sending my blog text to a friend in Australia who can post it for me. Ha, even the Chinese government can't silence the 100 goals blog!
I now wonder if maybe that's why I got so many questions when trying to get a visa for China, when I put "Travel Writer" in the occupation box. (Well, what else could I say my job is - I don't really have one, do I?) They wanted to know alot about what I was writing. The guy at the next window, a writer of financial reports was also having similar issues!
By late afternoon it was getting really cold, and I decided that I had done more than enough sight-seeing in grim conditions, and caught the subway home, buying a dinner of some very strange-looking sandwiches from the local bakery, and enjoyed a quiet evening back at the hostel.
Summer Palace on a winter's day Tuesday, November 10, 2009
When I got up this morning I discovered that there had been at least 6 inches of snow overnight. I wrapped up warm and headed out to find some breakfast, settling for fruit as an easy option, and then made my way to the subway, heading for the Summer Palace, on the outskirts of the city.
The huge park and spectacular temple on top of the hill overlooking the lake all looked very picturesque with a blanketing of snow, and at times the sun made a brief appearance too, to complete the scene. I wandered for a couple of hours among hoards of tour groups, all usually wearing identical caps to distinguish them from other, almost identical groups.
My next stop, after a fantastic mystery omlette-sort-of-thing from a street cart, was Olympic Park, site of the 2008 Olympics. The "Bird's Nest" Stadium is eyecatching, and the wide boulevard nice to stroll along, albeit it with thousands of other visitors too, and once again plagued by the touts selling all sorts of rubbish.
As it started to get dark my final stop for the day was the wonderful night market, filled with a mind-boggling array of wierd and wonderful foods, most grilled on sticks over a barbeque, and simply eaten as you wander along. I saw, grilled on sticks, among other things, scorpions, seahorses and starfish. And that was just the stuff I recognised! I stuck with slightly more familiar choices for dinner!
This really is an unusual place! Once again I am interested in how the travelling attitude to prices can shift very quickly. Here you get about 6.6 yuen to a US dollar. A night at the hostel costs around 70 yuen, pretty good value. I could hire a bicycle from a street vendor for 24 hours for the princely sum of 20 yuen (that's around $3, for a day!). But I was appalled when I found a Starbucks, and a small cup of coffee was going to cost me 26 yuan. That's 4 bucks for a coffee - outrageous! The best vale I have seen is petrol, at 1 yuen per litre, which is about 15 cents, or around 60 cents per gallon. No wonder the taxis here are so cheap!
It's all just so different and so interesting.
Forbidden City Wednesday, November 11, 2009
I had another touristy day today, first catching the bus to visit The Temple of Heaven. It was pretty nice, although perhaps not as spectacular as The Summer Palace was yesterday. Just as interesting, and much more amusing, was the wide variety of karaoke singing, and impromptu dancing that was going on in the park, all to the sound of Chinese music distorted at maximum volume through tiny portable speakers!
My next stop was the final place on my tourist list of Beijing, and I think I had saved the best 'til last. I caught the subway from The Temple of Heaven, and wandered through Tian'anmen Square again to the south entrance of the Forbidden City. Once I negotiated my way through the minefield of sales people and potential guides, I entered what was once the palatial home of many Chinese Emperors.
The place is absolutely huge. I wandered through the centre of the open palace, and through some of the main temples, until I finally reached the north gate.
I then headed back south through the western section, and finally north again via the eastern side. This took several hours.
Apparently there are 999 rooms, one short of the perfect number that is believed to be heavenly. From a look at the map, it looks like only about half of the place is open to wander through, huge areas closed off, or undergoing restoration.
The huge open centre section is impressive, but interesting too is the labyrinth of rooms and passageways to either side. An emperor could easily get lost in there! You would have to live there for months to really know your way around.
All of the rooms have wonderful names. For example, I passed through the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Palace of Earthly Tranquility and the Hall of Mental Cultivation, among many other equally grandly named spaces. It's all very impressive.
I finished the day off by borrowing a bicycle from the hostel and heading for the bank, making the possible mistake of throwing myself headlong into rush hour traffic on the rattliest, wobbliest bike I have ever ridden! The cycling and traffic is chaotic, and the trip was hilarious and terrifying in approximately equal measure. I'm pretty sure my travel insurance doesn't cover this kind of extreme activity!
Finally, a couple of random things I have learned about China:-
Spitting is a national passtime. Male or female, it doesn't matter. And the more hawking and gutteral noise you make before the big spit, the better! And you can spit anywhere, footpath, road, temple, it doesn't seem to matter!
Foreigners pay a different price for many things. I bought some fantastic bread this morning at a tiny little window outlet. The woman in front of me got three spicy hot bread rolls, gave 2 yuen, and got some change. I bought two rolls, gave 2 yuen, and got nothing back but a confused look. Upon my return later in the afternoon, I bought three rolls, and the asking price was 6 yuen. This is th point where I made a stand, and simply paid 3 yuen, which was accepted without question. I am pretty sure I still overpaid. It is one of the tastiest breads ever, and 3 yuan is 45 cents, so I'm not complaining!
Public toilets can be pretty hit and miss, literally! Many are squat hole-in-the-ground type, and accuracy seems to be a bit of an issue with some of the locals! Another very important lesson to learn is that each cubicle (that is if you actually in a toilet block with the luxury of a cubicle at all) does not have it's own supply of paper! Don't discover this by trial and error! Collect your paper from the communal paper dispenser before heading for your cubicle.
I visited one toilet today, optimistically labelled as 4 Star by the Beijing Tourism Administration. (It's somebody's job to go around giving out star ratings for toilets!!) I couldn't help but notice this, as the sign was proudly displayed above the paper dispenser that served both ladies and gents toilets!!
Goal 64 - Walking on the Chinese Wall. Thursday, November 12, 2009
"He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man." Mao Zedong.
Well, I guess finally I can truly call myself a man now, as today I got to climb and walk along the Great Wall of China at last.
I was hoping that Lancy was going to be able to join me, and our plan was to go out to one of the older, less touristy sections of the wall, where you have to get a bus (or tour) to one point, then can walk a 10 kilemetre section of the wall, and organise return transport from there (or catch your tour bus back!)
But the forecast was for the weather to get much worse, with predictions of heavy snow to come, so in the end I had to make a practical decision, and decided to at least go and see the wall today. There is a much more accessible section, apparently frequented by hoards of tourists, but from pictures I had seen, it still looks quite spectacular.
So I was up and dressed warmly first thing this morning, and as I made my way to the local bus stop in the darkness, the snow had already started. The bus took me to a nearby bus station, where I transferred onto a long distance bus, and an hour and a half later we approached Badaling, site of a section of the wall.
The snow had been falling all morning and was getting thick on the road, and with amusing inevitability, when we stopped on a hill, the bus started to slide, and eventually ended up completely stuck. I opted to walk the rest of the way with a few of the locals, and 15 minutes later arrived at the entrance to the wall itself.
On both sides of the valley the wall headed steeply uphill, looking almost exactly as I had expected it to, apart from the fact that higher up it just disappeared into shrouds of mist and snow. There were quite a few people about, and several larger tour groups, but I suspect that the weather meant numbers were much lower than on a nicer day.
I bought my ticket, and decided to head up the eastern section first, as there were alot less people going that way. This section of the wall, which in total covers thousands of miles, has been extensively restored, and is in very good condition, although perhaps somewhat less authentic than many older sections which are not so accessible to tour buses.
After a steep, snowy, slippy climb I reached a fortress at the top of the hill, and was greeted by my first and only salesman of the day - the bad weather must keep all but the hardiest of them away too. A few more people had made it that far too, but the wall continued, and the snow on the next section was completely untrodden.
A small extra effort always reaps rewards, and for the next section, I had the wall completely to myself for over half an hour. At the end of the section open to the public, the wall continues, but has not been restored, and looked very appealing, but unfortunately, due to a huge spiked fence, I had to turn round, and headed back down to join the throngs.
I headed up the other side among larger groups of visitors, all of us struggling and laughing in the treacherously slippy conditions. At the top, many groups were loudly taking photos, but once again, an extra hundred yards of semi-skiing down the next, steep slippy section meant I had the wall to myself again.
Afterwards, I headed back down to the valley, and discovered that the buses were still not running up the Badaling road, so had to walk a couple of miles down to the main highway to catch a bus back to the city. I would have caught a taxi, but only had enough cash left for the bus and a bite to eat!
What a great day out, made so much better I think by the snow and tricky conditions, which meant it was a much more unique and personal experience, in what could have just been a heaving tourist trap location.
Goal 64 is also number 4 of the "New 7 Wonders of the World". Machu Picchu, Christ The Redeemer and Taj Mahal still to see!
Wild Great Wall. Saturday, November 14, 2009
Lancy and I had discussed a trip to a much older section of the Great Wall, which she referred to as the "Wild Great Wall", but in the early part of the week the weather was deteriorating, eventually ending in Thursdays's big snowstorm, which ironically was the day I decided to go to Badaling to see that part of the wall on my own, resulting in quite an adventurous day. When I saw the newspaper on Friday morning, it said that it had been a bad day, several people dying under colapsed roofs, and the government declaring an orange alert! What a day to pick to go on an expedition!
Friday morning though, as forecast, was warmer and there was a beautiful clear blue sky. I went out on the bicycle again (I'm like a local now) to buy some breakfast and some supplies for the day, and packed my bag.
I caught the bus to the long distance bus station, where at 1pm I met Lancy as we'd arranged. A couple of hours on another bus would take us to Miyun, but our adventure started early, when our bus, which had been smelling strongly of burning gearbox oil for quite some time, finally ground to a halt!
In the process of moving on to a new bus, we somehow managed to end up with an old lady practically attached to us, probably because I was the only foreigner on the bus. She kept telling us we should get off the bus early to catch a taxi to the Great Wall. We ignored her suggestion, as Lancy made some enquiries with other people on the bus, giving us better information. It is very nice to have a Chinese-speaking person with me.
At Miyun our old lady continued to shadow us, babbling incessantly at poor Lancy, trying to convince us the only option was to pay 300 Yuen (about $42) for a taxi! At the small tour shop that runs the local bus, bad news! No more buses were running, as it was Friday afternoon - not sure about the logic of this really. However, our old lady seemed more optimistic about her chances, but she was really starting to bug us.
Eventually Lancy produced results, and we were told where to go to get a shared minibus or taxi. We finally shed our old lady when she realised we had solved our problem, and some tough negotiations later we were on our way to Jinshangling, for the much more reasonable price of 50 Yuan ($7) for us both.
At Jinshangling, where the temperature was bitterly cold, we found some reasonable accomodation for 55 Yuan each ($8), which again after some negotiation, at which Lancy was quickly becoming very good, would include dinner and breakfast.
In the morning we got up fairly early, and after breakfast made our way up to the wall. The sun was out again, and we started to warm up a little as we climbed out of the valley shadows.
Up on the wall itself the views were stunning, and we could see the wall snaking off into the distance over the mountains in both directions, each mountain peak having a watch tower perched on top.
The day couldn't have been better. The sun was out, and there wasn't a breath of wind. The wall still had an icy covering of snow on the top, making it look stunningly bright. And best of all, because we had arrived the day before and got a good start, we were ahead of any of the tour groups that would be coming along later, and literally had the whole wall to ourselves for as far as we could see in either direction.
Our route would take us along the wall for about 10 kilometres, up and down the mountains, passing through the watch towers on each summit. Every step of the way offered the most amazing photographic opportunities - the views were gorgeous.
Some parts of the wall were pretty well maintained, but some parts were crumbling away, and at the steeper sections, especially covered in snow and ice, it was pretty treacherous, but we took our time, and had no real problems.
We walked for around four hours through the most incredible, wonderful landscape, and I tried to explain to Lancy how this absolutely perfect experience exceeded all my expectations about what it would be like to walk on the Great Wall. It truly was one of the finest days I have ever spent in the mountains. We were both very happy that we had made the extra effort to make our own, individual trip, rather than join a larger group on an organised tour.
We didn't hurry, and sat for a while eating our supplies and admiring the view. After a little over four hours, which seemed to have passed in no time at all, we crossed a suspension bridge over Simatai Lake, and descended from the wall down into the small town of Simatai itself.
More negotiations got us a reasonable taxi back to Miyun, and we caught the next bus back to Beijing. At the main station there Lancy and I parted ways, as I headed back to the hostel and she headed home. I will be eternally grateful to her for being such a great tour guide, interpreter, companion, and all round entertainer - I couldn't have asked for better company on such a marvellous adventure.
I had a quick shower at the hostel, grabbed my bags and hit the road. Time to leave Beijing, and head for Thailand next. Thanks again to Lancy for her help and advice in many of the things I did in Beijing. Thanks also to all the helpful and friendly staff at the Sitting On The City Walls Courtyard Hotel, which was a great place to stay right in the centre of Beijing.
I really have had a fantastic time here, and certainly hope to be back to see more of China. What a fascinating, friendly, fun place to visit.
Chinese opera on the Great Wall. Monday, November 16, 2009
I took a few video clips on the snowy, misty Badaling section of the Great Wall. There was a loud speaker system all the way along the wall, which played the same message over and over again, which spoiled the atmosphere a little, particularly when I had walked past the tourist hoards, and found a section of the wall all to myself.
Lancy translated the message for me, telling me that it was a warning about the slippery, icy conditions, and to please take care.
Fortunately there was no such touristy nonsense on the much more remote sections of wall we visited a couple of days later at Jinshaling and Simatai, but I couldn't resist getting Lancy to issue a stern Chinese warning.
And who would have thought before I began any of this, that my journey would take me to a remote section of the Great Wall Of China, without another soul in sight, where I would have some Chinese opera sung to me!! Awesome! One of the highlights of my journey so far.
Most people that visit the Great Wall go to a tourist spot like Badaling, Juyongguan, or Mutianyu. It's much more exciting to visit the unrestored Great Wall at places like Jiankou. The Great Wall Forum at http://www.greatwallforum.com can help you with any kind of information you need.
Badaling China - No specific date
