We woke up earlier today at 7.30am as we wanted to conquer the Great Wall of China. When we came out from the hotel street, we are happy to see that there is a busy local wet market in the morning. This is a good time to snap a few photo of the locality of Beijing daily life. We spend about 20 minutes here despite we are in hurry to go Badaling Great Wall as it's about 70km from our hotel.
  
We took subway to Jisuitan station and walk to Deshengmen and from there we met a conman that wanted to cut our throat. We knew about tricks of 919 buses to Badaling beforehand and we are extra cautious on this. There will be a lot of 919 buses and all will be going to the direction of Badaling Great Wall. It’s just that the routes are different from each other and some might end up going a big round before reaching destination. The problem is we need to find the exact express direct way to Badaling.
Despite knowing the facts that there are many conman trying to squeeze our money out of pocket, we nearly fall into their trap. This 'bus guy' we met was asking for CNY400 for transportation and keeps asking us to take cab. He said that it's hard to wait for 50 people for the bus as it will wait for passengers to fully board the bus before departure. Then he told us only his bus are going to Badaling and if we buy one way ticket, we wouldn’t be able to come back to Deshengmen. We keep on asking him how he calculates the total CNY400 amount as we knew the original bus only cost CNY12 and he keep on pushing my question away. Finally he told us that amount included ticket for cable car and ‘others’ as he knew we are reluctant and our suspicious grew stronger on him. I told him off saying that the cable car only cost RMB60 and he argued back saying that there is no such cheap price. We walk off and let him grumbling behind. Within a few steps ahead; we finally found the real direct 919 bus to Badaling. It cost only CNY12 per person compare to CNY400! The location of this direct 919 bus is a little hidden behind Deshengmen tower. We reached Badaling in an hour and bought entrance ticket which cost CNY 60 per person and sliding car ticket for CNY 60 too.
  
I must admit that Badaling Great Wall was truly a wonder of the medieval world. We took a slide car to the 4th station which we need to climb another 3 station before reaching the top of Badaling Great Wall. For the adventurous, you can climb from station 1 and it's said to take about 6 hours as the steps are steep and there is only one way up and down. Sometime you need to wait for an hour’s for people to descend only you can start ascending as it's very narrow. For people who couldn't climb but wanted to enjoy the top could opt for cable car instead and it will bring you to the 6th station. We wanted half half experience so we took the sliding car. We climb for an hour before reaching the top. Alas we conquered Badaling Great Wall and the feeling is so great!
  
The scenery on top really took our breath away and we really enjoyed the nice cool windy weather. We are lucky to have visited Badaling Great wall and other part of Beijing on October. If we were to go during July which is their summer, I am sure the mood will be completely different. People who are exhausted, hot and tired are easier to get angry. We are tired but the cold weather really helps a lot in controlling our mood. We took a lot of picture here and as usual, let the picture do the talking.
  
  
We then hired a private car to bring us to Ming Tomb - Dingling. We wanted to go Changling and Dingling but the driver misunderstood us for other place. We ended up in The Ming Dynasty Wax Museum. We quickly spend a few minutes here and buzz off to Dingling as the time is running out.
We then arrive at Dingling Tomb at 4.30pm and paid our private car and he goes off. We quickly bought the ticket as the Dingling will close at 6.00pm. Dingling is under ground and about 27 meters deep. It is the mausoleum of Emperor Zhu Yijun, the thirteenth emperor who occupied the throne the longest during the Ming Dynasty, and his two empresses. The main features are the Stone Bridge, Soul Tower, Baocheng and the Underground Place, which was unearthed between 1956 and 1958. The entire palace is made of stone. The Soul Tower is symbolic of the whole of Dingling and it forms the entrance to the underground chambers.
  
When I came back to Malaysia and done some reading, I get to know that the excavation of Dingling tomb was rather disastrous as they didn't have the technology or the resource to preserve the excavated artefacts. Large amount of silk and other textiles were simply piled into a storage room that leaked water and wind. As a result, most of the surviving artefacts today have severely deteriorated, and replicas are instead displayed in the museum. The lesson learned from the Ding Ling excavation has led to a new policy of the China government not to excavate any historical site except for rescue purposes. In particular, no proposal to open an imperial tomb has been approved since Dingling, even when the entrance has been accidentally revealed.
  
We nearly left stranded over 90km from our hotel as we have forgotten the time and thought the last bus depart at 5pm. We are lucky as the last bus for 5pm was actually from Badaling but not at Ming Tomb. When we came out from Ming Tomb, there is only two private cars left on the parking lot. We are so scared at that time and luckily a bus came just in time. We boarded the bus and it took us an hour to the last station. From there, we have to take another bus to Deshengmen which took us another hour. We reached home nearly 9pm and we had maggie noodles and some grilled meat which we bought on our way to hotel as our dinner.
  
We are so exhausted by the time we finished our dinner and bath. Our leg seems not listening to us anymore and they beg for a rest. We use Yoko Yoko as counter pain for our leg. We called it a day and have a good sleep. |
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