The Great Wall is one of those places that pictures don't adequately convey. We spent seven days hiking up to and on various parts of it, and I could happily have done much more
( Read more... )
Wow those photos (and the wall) are amazing. It's kind of amazing that you can still walk along it (instead of preserving it) but I guess tourism money is pretty crucial.
It's over 6,000km long (one study says 21,000km counting all the branches) so it makes sense to have some parts open for tourism. Lots of it is closed to the public, or accessible only with a ticket that (supposedly) goes towards restoration (refer to the ticket, ticket, ticket sign in sign post). I think all the parts we saw would have been at least partly restored. It was hard to get a feel for what was original and what wasn't.
The bigger problem has been people dismantling it to use for building materials, which has been going on for centuries, and erosion, especially from sandstorms. I imagine it will be gone altogether before too much more time goes by except where it's continually restored.
I think you would have enjoyed the walking (on the good air days!). The many steps of various heights and the steepness of the climb up to the wall from some of the starting points I think would make it somewhat challenging for the vast majority of people, assuming they go at a good pace. One person in our group wasn't very well prepared, but she sat out the two toughest days and on the other days those of us who wanted to often did extra sections.
Comments 9
Reply
Reply
The bigger problem has been people dismantling it to use for building materials, which has been going on for centuries, and erosion, especially from sandstorms. I imagine it will be gone altogether before too much more time goes by except where it's continually restored.
Reply
Reply
Reply
I think you would have enjoyed the walking (on the good air days!). The many steps of various heights and the steepness of the climb up to the wall from some of the starting points I think would make it somewhat challenging for the vast majority of people, assuming they go at a good pace. One person in our group wasn't very well prepared, but she sat out the two toughest days and on the other days those of us who wanted to often did extra sections.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment