Our Trip to Beijing Municipality, China

8. Great Wall

We took a bus to see the Great Wall. The Chinese Travel Service wanted a very large sum to arrange a visit here so we had one of our students help get us tickets on a Chinese people's bus to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. It cost only $8 US and that included lunch and dinner. Of course the bus had no air-conditioning and there was a 20-gallon can of gas sitting in front of us. We had a good time. The wall was much steeper than I had imagined and quite narrow in spots. In the 1950s the Eighth Route Army was stationed here and they dismantled much of the wall for stones to build their barracks. In later years they were stationed back here again to dismantle their barracks to rebuild the wall for the tourists. Of course the wall never stopped any invaders. Once the emperor didn't pay his troops and the invader offered to pay them and over the wall they came.