The great wall - probably at the top of the list for most people when visiting China - and deservedly so. It was up there on Julia's hit list too, and so we actually ended up walking the wall twice! Well...when in China!
There are so many sections to choose from, and all give a different experience, from restored/re-built to totally wild. Walking the wall twice gave us the chance to experience both of these; the 'classic' wall which is close to Beijing, making it an easy day or two day trip (but heaving with tourists), the partially restored/re-built wall and what is known as 'wild wall' which is overgrown and partially collapsed.
There are also sections which are impassable, either due to the number of people there (e.g. Badaling) or it has crumbled away. In fact, only around 1,000km of the wall is actually stone, the remaining 5,300km is piled earth, but much of this has been weathered away. This area was reachable relatively easily from Datong, but we didn't have time sadly.
The original wall was built more than 2000 years ago by the Qin dynasty who joined various sections built by the kingdoms at the time to keep out marauding nomads in the north. However much of the brick wall you see today, and 'classic' images are from the Ming dynasty.
Ironically, after all the effort, the wall didn't really do a great job at keeping those northerners out. indeed according to LP, Genghis Khan noted, 'The strength of a wall depends on the courage of those who defend it'. Both the Mondol armies an Manchu armies were able to take over China and rule for many centuries.
In more modern times, invading countries just came by sea, and technology took over and made it useless. In fact, it was largely forgotten about and Mao even encouraged people to use the stone for building material. It was actually the tourist industry that saved it!
In true Chinese style, visiting The Great Wall was only really promoted via a (Chinese) tour (£££). There were many to choose from via hotels and local travel agencies, all aimed at the typical Chinese tourist i.e. all organised and taken to parts of the wall that had many facilities (including a gondola up and a toboggan run back from the wall) and were restored. We wanted to experience a mix, and the easiest way to do this was via a hostel organised tour (££) which took you to areas of the wall that were less restored but officially open to walking.
But we also wanted to walk the wild wall area, and the way to do this was by public transport, which is a lot cheaper (£), but it is a pain as there are no direct buses and there's no easy 'how to get there' and you need to time your walking right. We had to find our plan to do this via a lot of googling and other travel blogs...the Chinese are definitely not independent travellers!
So having done our research, and decided which part of the wall to walk (see our summary of the sections below) we decided to do a tour for one area and DIY the other.
Tour day: Jinshanling - Simatai West
This is the 'classic' walk for most tour agencies. You used to be able to walk all the way to Simatai, like Chris did in 2008, but this is no longer possible, so we understood.
We decided to do this section on a tour, as it was difficult to get there by public transport. The best way to organise a tour is via a youth hostel - even if you are not staying in one. All offer trips and are much cheaper than having a driver (about 500-700CNY). We decided to go with the YHA near the main train station, as the trip was the same cost as the others, but also included breakfast, lunch, transport, pick up from hotel and entrance fee - we paid 290 CNY pp - down from 320 CNY. Other trips are 280 CNY but did not include lunch.
We got picked up at our hotel at 6am and after picked up a few extras we were on our way. The drive took about 2 hours, so it was perfect for a kip and some interview prepping for Julia.
We first had to drop some Chinese at Simatai. It changed a lot since Chris was last there. A new Water Town had been built and it looked very touristy. None the less, the toilets were good. Funnily enough all the westerners stayed on the bus for the true walking tour and all the Chinese got off to experience the wall from the safe haven and amenities of the new water town.
We arrived at the entrance gate at about 10am in the end and after a quick briefing of 'here is your ticket, when you get to the wall turn left and then turn left at East gate' - and we were off.
You can take a cable car up, but we decided to walk, as we could get a bit more wall in. This was well worth it as you miss quite a bit if you travel by the cable car (think it was around 18 CNY pp).
The start of the walk took us up a road, but we were soon up on the wall at a section that dips down to a small valley with a large guard tower/gate. We climbed up and turned left. If you have time, you could turn right as the views looked great from about 2-3 towers further along.
Distances in the world of the wall, are defined by the number of towers. You will hear people refer to 'tower 23'. It help a lot with bearings and helped with knowing how far we had walked.
The Jinsaling area has been re-built, but it is an interesting part of the wall, with its spectacular undulations, sweeping left and right along the ridge and spectacular long stretch views in both directions. There are also hiding walls within the wall to allow the wall to be defended if it was breached - making for some fun photos.
We were incredibly lucky with the weather. The sun was shining and the air was clear, so we could see for miles. The wall snakes its way up and around hills, down valleys and across ridges - it was a breath taking sight and one of the most enjoyable and spectacular walks.
Walking further along into the Simatai west area the wall started to disintegrate slightly, which made for a bit more adventure, and the snaking line of the wall ahead and behind was a work of art let alone engineering!
We came across so many great photo spots. Here is just a taster of a few we took:
We finally came to where we needed to go down to the bus, however, we still had about 15 minutes, so we went past the stairs and onto some more 'wild wall'. The wall instantly became loose under foot and the walls disappeared.We got to the third tower and had an amazing view into Simitai. An amazing way to finish the walk.
After backtracking, we followed the signs down to the East car park to catch the bus and headed off to our lunch stop just down the road - well needed by this point! It was surprisingly good with a nice selection of Chinese food, but soon it was time to head back to the bus and our journey back to Beijing, arriving (due to traffic) at about 5-6pm.
DIY Day: Jiankou - Mutianyu
Once we'd done the research, this walk was easy to get to by public transport. The walk starts in the village of Xizhazi, with around 5 routes up allowing you to make the walk as long as you wish. We decided to cut the corner a little to save a bit of time, but doing the full stretch is fully achievable in a day - just remember to turn left when you reach the wall!
We got the subway to Dongzhimen station and went to the bus station next door to take the 916 express to Dongzhimen at about 6:30am as we wanted lots of time to figure out the route. The bus was relatively easy to find inside the bus station, we luckily caught the faster express route (there is a symbol after the number - so watch out!), and got comfy for the 1-2hr journey.
We'd read to make sure we got to the end of the line at the bus station, as many taxi drivers try to tempt you off earlier, which we did experience about 4 stops from the end, luckily there was a really clear bus route on the wall and with some chinese symbol matching we worked out quickly we hadn't arrived to the end of the line yet!
At the bus station there were also lots of taxis/mini bus drivers ready to take you to the wall. We negotiated a 100CNY taxi to Xizhazi village. There is also a bus, but this did not leave to Xixhazi until after 11am (H25) and involved some finding in Dongzhimen. We didn't trust the information in LP and, in any case, it would have been too late for our walk.
The Jiankou section of the wall is very wild indeed, and we found ourselves scrambling along in parts. The easiest walk is to follow the route up to Zheng Bei Lou (Sharp North Tower) tower from Xixhazi 2 village (as we did), as the part between this tower and Jinankou is very steep. We were glad of our, sturdy walking shoes!
This easier route was following a path from the village and our driver knew exactly where to go when we showed him the Chinese for Xixhazi Village 2 (top tip: get it written down by your hotel or copy it from the web!).
We knew we were heading in the right direction as we'd found a great blog with photos directing the route, including passing through the decorative gate, where we were asked to to pay 20 CNY entrance to the Xixhazi village area, and the drop off spot by a farm at a dead end. We followed our trusty bloggers route up the small concrete track and followed the path to the right of the small wall. From there it was easy and following a track straight up - you can't really go wrong.
After about 45mins - 1 hour and a bit of walking/scrambling up the hill we made it to Zheng Bei Lou (Sharp North Tower) tower - and wow what a view!
From here we turned left and walked along the wall towards Mutianyu. The wall continued to be fairly wild, but scrub and broken wall. Very different to our previous walk, as it had much more of an adventurous feel about it!
We soon came across a small loop heading up to a section of the wall known as the Ox Horn - Niu Jiao Bian. Most take the easy short cut and miss this out as the other side of the wall is only about 50 years away, but we thought the views from the top could be good to we decided to scale it.
The wall became very steep and we were soon hanging onto the wall to pull ourselves up. But is was worth it! On the way down it became very skiddy with the eroded wall under foot, and Julia slid most of the way down on her bum!
After this little hill, the path became slightly better and we were able to walk along in comfort, taking in the views.
Suddenly we hit the renovated wall. It comes up very suddenly. Once moment you are navigating around vegetation and loose bricks, the next you are on clean restored wall, with flat bricks and no obstacles. It did mean we could quicken up the pace which was good as our stomachs were calling for some grub by then!
We found a tower with a super view, scrambling up to the roof, for lunch and chilled out.
We could see the wall headed down, and we were happy we had walked this direction, as the steps down went on for a long way - poor souls who had to climb up them from the Mutianyu area.
In the distance was the cable car, chair lift and toboggan for Mutianyu, so we could see how far we had to go.
After descending the endless steps and jumping over a wall, as the Chinese had bricked the walkway up with a sign saying 'no passing' - not that anyone took any notice - we walked past the cable car and headed towards the chair lift and toboggan.
We had been walking for a long time, so Julia decided to call it a day, but Chris wanted to head to the end of the section, so we made a deal that Julia would walk down to the car park and figure out how we would get back to Beijing and Chris would run up the final stretch of steps and get the toboggan down - hopefully meeting up at about the same time.
The final stretch for Chris was all up hill and there were three towers to navigate with a lot of steps in between, but after about 10 minutes he had got to the top. Again the Chinese had bricked up the exits to the next part of the wall which was rather wild again. The wall split into two here and it would have been fun to investigate further but time was getting on, so after jumping out one of the windows of the tower and navigating along a rather narrow ledge to get onto the next stretch of wild wall, he headed down.
The toboggan ride was really good fun. It is just over 1500m and takes you right to the bottom. It is a little pricey at 80 CNY, but was well worth it!
At the bottom we met up with a couple from the UK who Chris had been chatting to and tried to figure out how to get back. To leave the area, we quickly found that we need to take a shuttle bus (10 CNY) to the entry gate and then either take a taxi to Dongzhimen or jump on a local bus. As we really wanted to head back, we paid for a taxi (10CNY per person). Ironically the bus pulled in just as we were leaving...sods law! But after the walk we had just wanted to get on our way.
We got dropped off at a bus stop, but there was no bus stop sign or info. It looked okay, but to make sure we ensured the driver didn't leave until the bus arrived. Taken a little aback he stayed, but he didn't need to wait long as the 916 back to Beijing arrived within 5 minutes.
The journey back was fairly uneventful, apart from a good chat with our new found friends Ben and Kelly about the current student doctor situation as they were both recently qualified! - Best of luck to them and all the junior doctors in the UK - you deserve all the support!
Overall it was pretty easy to get to this part of the wall by public transport. You need to leave Beijing early to allow yourself enough time, but it was a fun journey and very reasonable. It cost us 6 CNYpp for the bus from Beijing to Dongzhimen, taxi at 100 CNY from Dongzhimen to Xizhazi, 20CNY pp entry fee into Xizhazi, 10 CNY pp for the shuttle at Mutianyu and then 10 CNY pp for the taxi back to the bus stop to pick up the bus 6 CNY pp back to Beijing. This came to 102CNY per person - a big saving!
If we had to choose one of the walks, it would have to be Jinshanling and Simatai It gave us the best pictures, from our point of view, and there was a lot less people. That said we got more of the adventurous walk from Jiankou, but you need to be prepared with a clear idea of the public transport timings as its further away from Beijing. We used chinawallforum.com for our info.
Here is a quick summary of the areas we have been to and A-B walks we have done, but there are many to choose from, some of which are only known to locals.
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| A never ending view |
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| Into the wild |
There are also sections which are impassable, either due to the number of people there (e.g. Badaling) or it has crumbled away. In fact, only around 1,000km of the wall is actually stone, the remaining 5,300km is piled earth, but much of this has been weathered away. This area was reachable relatively easily from Datong, but we didn't have time sadly.
The original wall was built more than 2000 years ago by the Qin dynasty who joined various sections built by the kingdoms at the time to keep out marauding nomads in the north. However much of the brick wall you see today, and 'classic' images are from the Ming dynasty.
 |
| Clear as clear can be |
Ironically, after all the effort, the wall didn't really do a great job at keeping those northerners out. indeed according to LP, Genghis Khan noted, 'The strength of a wall depends on the courage of those who defend it'. Both the Mondol armies an Manchu armies were able to take over China and rule for many centuries.
In more modern times, invading countries just came by sea, and technology took over and made it useless. In fact, it was largely forgotten about and Mao even encouraged people to use the stone for building material. It was actually the tourist industry that saved it!
In true Chinese style, visiting The Great Wall was only really promoted via a (Chinese) tour (£££). There were many to choose from via hotels and local travel agencies, all aimed at the typical Chinese tourist i.e. all organised and taken to parts of the wall that had many facilities (including a gondola up and a toboggan run back from the wall) and were restored. We wanted to experience a mix, and the easiest way to do this was via a hostel organised tour (££) which took you to areas of the wall that were less restored but officially open to walking.
 |
| One of the very few maps of the wall |
But we also wanted to walk the wild wall area, and the way to do this was by public transport, which is a lot cheaper (£), but it is a pain as there are no direct buses and there's no easy 'how to get there' and you need to time your walking right. We had to find our plan to do this via a lot of googling and other travel blogs...the Chinese are definitely not independent travellers!
So having done our research, and decided which part of the wall to walk (see our summary of the sections below) we decided to do a tour for one area and DIY the other.
Tour day: Jinshanling - Simatai West
This is the 'classic' walk for most tour agencies. You used to be able to walk all the way to Simatai, like Chris did in 2008, but this is no longer possible, so we understood.
We decided to do this section on a tour, as it was difficult to get there by public transport. The best way to organise a tour is via a youth hostel - even if you are not staying in one. All offer trips and are much cheaper than having a driver (about 500-700CNY). We decided to go with the YHA near the main train station, as the trip was the same cost as the others, but also included breakfast, lunch, transport, pick up from hotel and entrance fee - we paid 290 CNY pp - down from 320 CNY. Other trips are 280 CNY but did not include lunch.
We got picked up at our hotel at 6am and after picked up a few extras we were on our way. The drive took about 2 hours, so it was perfect for a kip and some interview prepping for Julia.
We first had to drop some Chinese at Simatai. It changed a lot since Chris was last there. A new Water Town had been built and it looked very touristy. None the less, the toilets were good. Funnily enough all the westerners stayed on the bus for the true walking tour and all the Chinese got off to experience the wall from the safe haven and amenities of the new water town.
We arrived at the entrance gate at about 10am in the end and after a quick briefing of 'here is your ticket, when you get to the wall turn left and then turn left at East gate' - and we were off.
 |
| Ready to roll |
You can take a cable car up, but we decided to walk, as we could get a bit more wall in. This was well worth it as you miss quite a bit if you travel by the cable car (think it was around 18 CNY pp).
The start of the walk took us up a road, but we were soon up on the wall at a section that dips down to a small valley with a large guard tower/gate. We climbed up and turned left. If you have time, you could turn right as the views looked great from about 2-3 towers further along.
 |
| Walking up to the wall |
Distances in the world of the wall, are defined by the number of towers. You will hear people refer to 'tower 23'. It help a lot with bearings and helped with knowing how far we had walked.
The Jinsaling area has been re-built, but it is an interesting part of the wall, with its spectacular undulations, sweeping left and right along the ridge and spectacular long stretch views in both directions. There are also hiding walls within the wall to allow the wall to be defended if it was breached - making for some fun photos.
 |
| Hide and seek |
We were incredibly lucky with the weather. The sun was shining and the air was clear, so we could see for miles. The wall snakes its way up and around hills, down valleys and across ridges - it was a breath taking sight and one of the most enjoyable and spectacular walks.
Walking further along into the Simatai west area the wall started to disintegrate slightly, which made for a bit more adventure, and the snaking line of the wall ahead and behind was a work of art let alone engineering!
 |
| ...Oh what a beautiful day... |
We came across so many great photo spots. Here is just a taster of a few we took:
We finally came to where we needed to go down to the bus, however, we still had about 15 minutes, so we went past the stairs and onto some more 'wild wall'. The wall instantly became loose under foot and the walls disappeared.We got to the third tower and had an amazing view into Simitai. An amazing way to finish the walk.
 |
| Looking back from the wilder wall |
After backtracking, we followed the signs down to the East car park to catch the bus and headed off to our lunch stop just down the road - well needed by this point! It was surprisingly good with a nice selection of Chinese food, but soon it was time to head back to the bus and our journey back to Beijing, arriving (due to traffic) at about 5-6pm.
DIY Day: Jiankou - Mutianyu
Once we'd done the research, this walk was easy to get to by public transport. The walk starts in the village of Xizhazi, with around 5 routes up allowing you to make the walk as long as you wish. We decided to cut the corner a little to save a bit of time, but doing the full stretch is fully achievable in a day - just remember to turn left when you reach the wall!
We got the subway to Dongzhimen station and went to the bus station next door to take the 916 express to Dongzhimen at about 6:30am as we wanted lots of time to figure out the route. The bus was relatively easy to find inside the bus station, we luckily caught the faster express route (there is a symbol after the number - so watch out!), and got comfy for the 1-2hr journey.
 |
| Following the symbols |
We'd read to make sure we got to the end of the line at the bus station, as many taxi drivers try to tempt you off earlier, which we did experience about 4 stops from the end, luckily there was a really clear bus route on the wall and with some chinese symbol matching we worked out quickly we hadn't arrived to the end of the line yet!
At the bus station there were also lots of taxis/mini bus drivers ready to take you to the wall. We negotiated a 100CNY taxi to Xizhazi village. There is also a bus, but this did not leave to Xixhazi until after 11am (H25) and involved some finding in Dongzhimen. We didn't trust the information in LP and, in any case, it would have been too late for our walk.
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| Our taxi driver |
The Jiankou section of the wall is very wild indeed, and we found ourselves scrambling along in parts. The easiest walk is to follow the route up to Zheng Bei Lou (Sharp North Tower) tower from Xixhazi 2 village (as we did), as the part between this tower and Jinankou is very steep. We were glad of our, sturdy walking shoes!
 |
| Loose wall under foot |
This easier route was following a path from the village and our driver knew exactly where to go when we showed him the Chinese for Xixhazi Village 2 (top tip: get it written down by your hotel or copy it from the web!).
We knew we were heading in the right direction as we'd found a great blog with photos directing the route, including passing through the decorative gate, where we were asked to to pay 20 CNY entrance to the Xixhazi village area, and the drop off spot by a farm at a dead end. We followed our trusty bloggers route up the small concrete track and followed the path to the right of the small wall. From there it was easy and following a track straight up - you can't really go wrong.
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| The path up to the wall |
After about 45mins - 1 hour and a bit of walking/scrambling up the hill we made it to Zheng Bei Lou (Sharp North Tower) tower - and wow what a view!
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| Ladder launch |
From here we turned left and walked along the wall towards Mutianyu. The wall continued to be fairly wild, but scrub and broken wall. Very different to our previous walk, as it had much more of an adventurous feel about it!
 |
| Looking back to the Sharp North Tower |
We soon came across a small loop heading up to a section of the wall known as the Ox Horn - Niu Jiao Bian. Most take the easy short cut and miss this out as the other side of the wall is only about 50 years away, but we thought the views from the top could be good to we decided to scale it.
 |
| Onwards and upwards! |
The wall became very steep and we were soon hanging onto the wall to pull ourselves up. But is was worth it! On the way down it became very skiddy with the eroded wall under foot, and Julia slid most of the way down on her bum!
 |
| Screwball scramble |
 |
| The hundreds of steps we luckily only had to walk down! |
Suddenly we hit the renovated wall. It comes up very suddenly. Once moment you are navigating around vegetation and loose bricks, the next you are on clean restored wall, with flat bricks and no obstacles. It did mean we could quicken up the pace which was good as our stomachs were calling for some grub by then!
 |
| Back to civilised wall |
We found a tower with a super view, scrambling up to the roof, for lunch and chilled out.
We could see the wall headed down, and we were happy we had walked this direction, as the steps down went on for a long way - poor souls who had to climb up them from the Mutianyu area.
In the distance was the cable car, chair lift and toboggan for Mutianyu, so we could see how far we had to go.
 |
| Those views... |
After descending the endless steps and jumping over a wall, as the Chinese had bricked the walkway up with a sign saying 'no passing' - not that anyone took any notice - we walked past the cable car and headed towards the chair lift and toboggan.
We had been walking for a long time, so Julia decided to call it a day, but Chris wanted to head to the end of the section, so we made a deal that Julia would walk down to the car park and figure out how we would get back to Beijing and Chris would run up the final stretch of steps and get the toboggan down - hopefully meeting up at about the same time.
The final stretch for Chris was all up hill and there were three towers to navigate with a lot of steps in between, but after about 10 minutes he had got to the top. Again the Chinese had bricked up the exits to the next part of the wall which was rather wild again. The wall split into two here and it would have been fun to investigate further but time was getting on, so after jumping out one of the windows of the tower and navigating along a rather narrow ledge to get onto the next stretch of wild wall, he headed down.
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| Only in China! |
The toboggan ride was really good fun. It is just over 1500m and takes you right to the bottom. It is a little pricey at 80 CNY, but was well worth it!
At the bottom we met up with a couple from the UK who Chris had been chatting to and tried to figure out how to get back. To leave the area, we quickly found that we need to take a shuttle bus (10 CNY) to the entry gate and then either take a taxi to Dongzhimen or jump on a local bus. As we really wanted to head back, we paid for a taxi (10CNY per person). Ironically the bus pulled in just as we were leaving...sods law! But after the walk we had just wanted to get on our way.
 |
| Back to tourist central |
We got dropped off at a bus stop, but there was no bus stop sign or info. It looked okay, but to make sure we ensured the driver didn't leave until the bus arrived. Taken a little aback he stayed, but he didn't need to wait long as the 916 back to Beijing arrived within 5 minutes.
The journey back was fairly uneventful, apart from a good chat with our new found friends Ben and Kelly about the current student doctor situation as they were both recently qualified! - Best of luck to them and all the junior doctors in the UK - you deserve all the support!
Overall it was pretty easy to get to this part of the wall by public transport. You need to leave Beijing early to allow yourself enough time, but it was a fun journey and very reasonable. It cost us 6 CNYpp for the bus from Beijing to Dongzhimen, taxi at 100 CNY from Dongzhimen to Xizhazi, 20CNY pp entry fee into Xizhazi, 10 CNY pp for the shuttle at Mutianyu and then 10 CNY pp for the taxi back to the bus stop to pick up the bus 6 CNY pp back to Beijing. This came to 102CNY per person - a big saving!
If we had to choose one of the walks, it would have to be Jinshanling and Simatai It gave us the best pictures, from our point of view, and there was a lot less people. That said we got more of the adventurous walk from Jiankou, but you need to be prepared with a clear idea of the public transport timings as its further away from Beijing. We used chinawallforum.com for our info.
Here is a quick summary of the areas we have been to and A-B walks we have done, but there are many to choose from, some of which are only known to locals.
- Badaling - Chris went here with Exodus and his parents back in 2006. It is totally restored and lacks the authenticity of other areas. It can feel rather Disney in nature and attracts hoards of Chinese groups. It can be easily reached from Beijing by public transport and is the closest at about 45 - 1 hour away.
- Mutianyu - We visited this section as part of one of our walks. It is again heavily restored and again, like Badaling, lacks authenticity. It can be a bit tedious after a time walking on this section, but it does offer access via a cable car and chair lift for those who don't like to walk up a hill to the wall. There is a fun toboggan.
- Jiankou - very wild and very fun. You need to be a good walker for this section. It also allows for a good couple of days of walking as you can stay in the Xizhazi village, but you will see the similar view. You can walk to Mutianyu from there, but you will need to climb up the rather steep section (70-80 degrees) to Zheng Bei Lou (Sharp North Tower) tower. Recommended.
- Jinshanling - a restored part of the wall, but given it is far from Beijing, it does not attract the numbers of other areas, making it a nice part of the wall. If you want some wild wall experience you can walk past the end of the section easily. The features and views for this section for probably the best we came across and therefore is highly recommended.
- Simatai - It is sadly not possible any more to walk from Jinshanling to Simitai, and Simitai has been redeveloped into a new water town, which the Chinese love, but we are less keen. The wall is very steep here.
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