It’s a cold, crisp day in November and we’re at the Badaling section of the Great Wall. The 3 of us hired a taxi in Beijjnng to drive here and wait while we hiked up the Wall. There are options: a gondola to the top or walking it. We chose to walk up. After all, the experience means more when you’ve suffered a little (my own personal theory…the ex-Marine I am married to would have prefered the gondola.)

The Badaling section is arguably the most popular tourist portion because of its proximity to Beijing. Take a public bus, tour or hire a taxi like we did.

Most of the travel books recommend other sections of the Wall as a more “authentic” experience. No handrails, chance of falling over the sides of the crumbling sections. They say the handrails and rebuilding take away the aura. Are they nuts? Badaling is STEEP, and I am holding on to the handrails to help drag myself up every step. It’s not only uphill…every now and then you go downhill before you go uphill again. As a vertically challenged woman, height 5″3″, there are steps that come up to my kneecaps and I do the old side-step, up and down them. Oldest son (age 43), who is accompanying us, isn’t doing any better than we senior parents and stops to sit on a step, pant and moan every now and then. We are hiking up the North section and it takes a very long hour to get to the “top”.

on the Badaling Great Wall of China
All of a sudden there are hordes of Chinese tourists surrounding us…they’ve chosen to take the gondola up or walked up from the South section which is not as difficult as approaching from the North. People are having their photos taken at the top, buying certificates that show you climbed the Great Wall and asking to have photos taken with us! The few token Westerners on the Wall that day. The three of us experience a celebrity moment as everyone in one Chinese tourist group poses with us. Great fun!

Now we walk down the Wall…very easy…with the exception of hanging on to the handrail for dear life on the steeper sections, and are in a parking lot. This is a major problem. This is not OUR parking lot…the one where our driver is supposed to be waiting. We are in the South parking lot with no idea how to get back to the North parking lot. There is a big map with all the writing in Chinese which doesn’t help at all.

The tourist police don’t speak English…all the little shopkeepers don’t speak English and my ex-Marine goes into panic mode, running around shouting “help”, “help”, “does anyone speak English?” and frothing at the mouth that “it will cost us a fortune to get back to Beijing if we don’t find our driver”. Finally, one little shopkeeper surfaces with a few words of English, primarily consisting of “Take taxi, he will help you look for your driver”. And that is what we did. That taxi-driver made the easiest $10 in his life for a 5 block drive! But, we found was our taxi, waiting for us in the North parking lot.!

Travel Lesson? Be smart enough to have your driver check out ALL the lots after a certain period of time and find you!