Great Wall China Picture From Tower. Chinese Families With Children Climb Great Wall.

The Great Wall China picture taken after a climb to a high tower at Badaling, a section of the Great Wall where repairs had been completed and open to tourists, including our group. This Great Wall China picture is a memento of a very hot day, walking up hundreds of uneven steps whilst under a large black umbrella ! Reconstruction of other sections of the Great Wall, in particular at Mutianyu, would include a cable car to one of the hill towers, an easier way to get to the top, which Liu and I used on a later visit but Zhang insisted on climbing. The Great Wall China picture I took of him, as he climbed the last steps to the tower, will be included on other pages.

Western Tourist Chooses Easier Option On Great Wall

During our journey to the Great Wall we were passed by two speeding coaches of "VIPs" with a police car escort, and through its loudspeaker one of the officers was telling all other vehicles to get out of the way, however we saw no sign of them when we arrived there ourselves. It was only a short walk from the car park to the Great Wall and then there was a choice to be made, to go left along a part of the wall which was still being reconstructed, or right, taking a quite steep series of steps to get to a tower, which is the path I chose, and so I started the ascent under the protection of a large black umbrella !

Great Wall Handrails Gleam From Use

The Chinese people say that you have not lived a full life if you have not climbed the Great Wall, so it was not surprising to find many Chinese family groups amongst the foreign tourists. There were young children with their parents and elderly grand-parents, and Graffiti was evidence of past visits, with Chinese characters etched in some of the Great Wall copings. The first part of the way up the Great Wall was relatively easy as the stone steps were fairly even, but on the approach to the tower, sizes varied considerably, one step rising perhaps five or six inches and the next about 12 inches. On the steeper parts, hand-rails had been fixed to the walls and these were bright and shiny from much use by the likes of me, and the steps near the walls were well worn.