I was looking forward to the Ming Tombs immensely, I mean hello it has tombs in its description. However it was disapointing in the extreme.
We get there and it is the same architecture as the Forbidden City and the temple of Heaven as the emperors continually renovated the area so the entrance way and gate house buildings are contemporary with the forbidden city and the temple of Heaven. There was a archway that was the gateway into the world of the dead which upon your return you had to cross back through, saying "I'm crossing back" in Chinese so that was fun and appealed to the romantic geek in me. Otherwise there was a museum which had the paltry remains of the treasure of the only opened Ming Tomb which had been rescued from the cultural revolution, the rest destroyed along with the body and the tomb. And so because of this, no more tombs will ever be opened and you can't go in the opened one because it is trashed. You can go round and up in the gate house bit with the tombs laid out in the mountains behind you but that is it. So unfortunately the whole experience left me angry, sad and unfulfilled.
By now I was also not feeling very well, we went to a Jade factory which improved things a bit, it really fascinating to learn about the different types of jade and where they come from. I learn that cabbage is Chinese slang for money so that is why there were loads of chinese leaf cabbages carved out of jade for feng shui in your house, you have to point the roots into the house apparently. The carvings were very good, then came the sales pitch and lunch of which I could eat hardly anything as I was feeling so unwell. Our table consisted of Erik, an Austrian and his Irsaeli wife, a Croatian couple and a Turkish couple who were all very nice.
Before the Great Wall we went to a Chinese Apothecary, that was pretty interesting, having been set up by one of the Emperors to research, collate and look into the various traditional remedies of China, basically a research institute of Traditional Chinese medicine, we had a bit of a guided tour and then got a free consultation which was fun, the first doctor a lady thought I was in perfect health despite the fact that I felt like death warmed up at this point, as a control I went for a second opinion, the male doctor successfully diagnosed my ulcer by looking at my tongue but didn't think there was anything else wrong with me.
Now onto the Great Wall!
We went to Badaling section, the drive there was brilliant, first catching sight of the great wall snaking through the high and imposing mountains was breathtaking and it was a lovely drive through the countryside. The mountains are really high and craggy and inaccessible. I was impressed by the Northern tribes of Inner Mongolia that not only considered conquering China through those mountains but actually threatened the Chinese so much over and on that they had to build these massive fortifications to keep them out and they still prevailed. I was awed by the human achievement of the wall and the sheer human tenacity and balls of those you looked not only at the scale of the mountains and then the protection of the walls and still managed to think "We could take that". I mean wow, astounding, I felt a deep respect and quite a bit of fear for the assorted Mongolian hordes of yesteryear.
I think if I ever visit the Great Wall again I will walk up to it rather than take the cable car as it might avoid the worst of the crowds. I found being on the Great Wall too much, it was too high for my fear of heights, too crowded for my dislike of crowds, too steep and treacherous for my dislike of going up and down stairs and after shoving my way through some of the great masses of people on the Wall and losing Marc in the crowd, I had what was probably a panic attack and a really good cry and a deep and pressing need to get down as soon as possible.
I did take a couple of deep breaths and look into Inner Mongolia. Observing the rugged, difficult terrain, I was again deeply impressed by the Mongolians and awed by the idea that once upon a time all this was unknown lands, out here the barbarian hordes lurked, this wall represented the edge of the known world to the Chinese soldiers guarding it, beyond was terra incognita, beyond the safety of the Wall, an alien world.
And then I got myself, snotty crying and all off those bloody mountains and back to the safety of the bus where Mr Gau, our bus driver was playing a card game with the other bus drivers.
On the way back from the Great Wall we got dropped off at the Olympic park to see the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. Both were really cool. You could see the inner structure of the Water Cube shadowed in the opaque bubbles that are on the outside of the building, making it look like hundreds of giant insect egg cases.
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