- SuitcasePacking -: THE GREAT WALL

The last day of many many on the road, we decided to do something... quite memorable. Let's go to the Great Wall to finish this 8 weeks of in glory, we said to each other and scrolled the internet for a good last-minute-tour.

In the last couple of weeks, we had been quite fond of doing daytrips booked via internet. First, they were a little more reliable, we figured, since there is often reviews and some kind of support if anything would happen. We've grown especially fond of Viator, since they (so far) always kept their promises and have a good selection of trips and prices with English speaking guides.

So we went with this one: The Great Wall at Badaling Section

And this is our day

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Our trip started 8 o'clock in the morning. Our guide William called us beforehand to tell us they were going to be a bit late, about ten minutes. We really liked this kind of personal service. It made us feel good about our choice of tour.

We then picked up three others and started the drive to Badaling section of Great Wall. We had chose to do this on the 30th of April. Little did we know that this was just one day before national holiday (labour day) and traffic jam was already a thing. The drive took longer than expected and William asked us if we wanted to go for lunch before the climbing the wall, which we gladly agreed to.

After a satisfying lunch, we took to the chairlifts that should take us up on the wall. This price wasn't included in the tour and was a 100 ¥ extra, but you really don't have any other choices if you want to spend as much time as possible on the wall - you can climb by foot but that will take you some time, and we had started to like the tingling feeling when you rise up in the air in an open chair lift.

Up on the wall by the 5th watch tower, William told us that the climb could be tough, but we had enough time to climb in a slow, more compforting pace since we could stay up there for a good 2,5 hour.

We kind of didn't, and instead rushed to the top. After having climbed a lot of stairs the last two months, this felt slightly pulse-pounding rather than exhausting. The view from here was great - but we were eager to see the other side as well, so after a short pick-me-up (consisting of water), we continued to Watch tower number 6, which we highly recommend!
Following pictures are from the walk following watchtower 6 - almost no people comparing to the other side!

Then, it was time to descend again. This time, we went by tobogan (included in said 100 ¥) and we had a blast - well, almost all of us. Jonathan got behind a mother with her kid so their speed wasn't really speedy at all. But. You don't go tobogan down the Great Wall every day.

We really recommend going to Badaling instead of more crowded Mutianyu section which is, accordning to this site, the most popular one among foreigners.
Badaling is supposed to be more popular among Chinese tourist (which we know by now can be quite overwhelming), but either we were in luck this day (doubtful considering it was so close to a national holiday...) or it simply was like our guide William said:

This section is best because it's less people here. And that's the end of that.

We really enjoyed our day. Everything was conveinent, which was something we had really longed for after weeks of getting around by ourselves in the middle of China. The food was good. The weather was perfect. The climb and its view was spectacular. And although the "checking-the-bucket-list"-kind of traveling isn't really our style, it felt good to say that we walked on

the Great Wall of China.