A streetside market on the way to the Wall.
On 11 December last year we were returning from Australia via China. Because we had a long wait between flights at Beijing we took a hotel (Air China provides a free hotel room if you know to ask). We had obtained a 72 hour transit permit when the plane landed for a couple of hours in Shanghai before continuing to Beijing and Simon had booked a guide and driver for the morning. Part of the Great Wall is about an hour from Beijing and our guide was confident he could get us there, spend an hour on the Wall, then get us to the airport in plenty of time to get through security (we'd checked our hold luggage all the way through and only had hand luggage with us). The big advantage of taking a trip to the Wall rather than the Forbidden City or Tianmen Square is that you are not having to cross the city, with all its traffic problems, to get back to the airport. It all worked swimmingly, and we are very glad we did it rather than sit around at the airport.
It was cold, and we had to be a little bit creative with our clothing. Simon had forgotten to pack long underwear, so wore two pairs of trousers. Luckily, I had been given another pair of my friend Margaret's hand knitted socks while I was in Australia, so they got their first outing on the Great Wall!
It was cold, and we had to be a little bit creative with our clothing. Simon had forgotten to pack long underwear, so wore two pairs of trousers. Luckily, I had been given another pair of my friend Margaret's hand knitted socks while I was in Australia, so they got their first outing on the Great Wall!
Simon has created an interactive map* of our day trip, with photos added for the highlights. If you would like to follow our trip, each of the symbols on the map can be clicked to bring up a photo.
View Route to the Great Wall in a larger map
View Route to the Great Wall in a larger map
A frozen waterfall on the way back.
*click this link if the embedded map doesn't work for you.
2 comments:
Boy... do I like that interactive map Simon... you ought to do ones for the Brenne... the Chateaux... the Vignerons....
Susan... you need one of those trikes to go to&fro the potager... they would probably be sans-permis, too!
Frozen waterfall and final shot shows how cold it was... especially the rictus grins!!
Lovely... thanks for sharing it!!
Tim: Glad you like the map. The rictus grins are probably more a product of standing in front of the camera on timer. I'd love a trike, but we can't work out what they would be classified as here. Our guide offered to arrange export and has done it before.
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