2017 Himalayas - Beijing Day 3: Great Wall & Ming Tombs

We were picked up at the hotel at 8:00 this morning by our guide Allen and a driver for our tour of the Great Wall & Ming Tombs. We arranged the tour through Tour-Beijing.com before leaving home, and everything worked like clockwork. 

It was another scorching day so we really appreciated the air conditioned car. It was quite smoggy in Beijing this morning, and good to get out of the city.

 

We drove first to the Ming Tombs, which are usually about an hour out of Beijing. But as this is a holiday weekend for the Dragon Boat Festival, traffic was heavy and it took longer. The location of the tombs was selected for auspicious feng shui, including the encompassing mountains with water running through the site. 

Thirteen Ming emperors were buried there between 1420s-1644, along with their empresses and, for the first five Ming emperors, their unfortunate surviving concubines who were buried alive. Each tomb had its own complex with walls, gates, stelae, gardens and an underground palace which included tombs, marble thrones, documents, textiles, jewelry, gold implements and other artifacts necessary for a proper funeral. 

 

 

Dragon and phoenix symbols, representing the emperor and empress, are everywhere.

The Dangling tomb that we visited was built by and for the 13th Ming emperor. It was excavated in the 1950s after exploratory tunnels located a directional stone. Fearing traps had been sent against intruders, the archeologists put a rooster and a sheep into the tomb and when they emerged unscathed, they knew it was safe to continue. The treasures and preserved body of the emperor that were found astonished the world, but several items, including the emperor, did not survive well when exposed to oxygen and no further tombs have been excavated.

 

 

 

Headgear with dragons and phoenixes.

 

The drive to our lunch stop was lovely as we climbed into the mountains and passed though picturesque agrarian villages with occasional glimpses of the Great Wall snaking across the hills. There were dozens of vendors along the road with carts attached with buckets of cherries for sale. If only we'd had a way to keep them chilled until we were on our way back to Beijing!

After lunch we finally arrived at the Mutienyu section of the Great Wall. It was amazing! The wind had swept away the omnipresent haze and we could see forever. 

 

Looking towards watchtower 14

About 5 miles of the Wall have been restored here, and one can also see a stretch of unrestored wall which is overgrown with foliage between the walls.

 

Unrestored section

 

Watchtowers 3-2-1
 
For better or worse, I was determined to hike to watchtower 1 for the view back and to get a closer look at the unrestored section. It was SO hot, 97 humid degrees, full sun and nowhere to buy water. The walls felt like a pizza stone. It was necessary to make many many stops to catch my breath, which allowed ample time to think about reach exceeding grasp. I did make it, but will not be doing this again.

 

 

 

Descending from the Wall involved either another long hot walk or the modern accelerated transportation system (kind of like the bullet train). We opted for the latter. 

 

It was a memorable, if tiring, day. We'd highly recommend the tour company to anyone looking for a guide or advice on things to do and eat around Beijing.

Fun fact: Found my Beijing KFC (my initials)

 

2017 Himalayas - Beijing Day 1

This is the part where you hope to begin, "After an uneventful flight..."

Our Air Canada crew and accommodations couldn't have been better, and it was so nice to have seats that converted to flat beds for sleeping. Around 1 AM Philly time, an announcement came on asking any doctor on the flight to identify themself. No doctors, so I woke up Elaine (an ER nurse and the other kind of doctor) and off she went. She spent the last 3 hours of our flight helping a passenger in the next section of the cabin.  She was going to be extra tired when we finally got to our hotel.

 

After a long cab ride through congested streets, we reached our hotel in the Dongcheng neighborhood eat of the Forbidden City around 6:30. No need to adjust our watches, as all of China is on one time zone, conveniently 12 hours ahead of home. However, our bodies are going to require a major reset. Elaine wisely went to bed; I went walking for a bit to buy water and watch the nightlife after sitting on the plane so long. 

 

Outside the Forbidden City

2017 Himalayas - Beijing Day 2: Forbidden City

This was our day to explore Beijing, though the weather and jet lag curtailed plans a bit. 

First (and as it turned out, last) stop was the Forbidden City, where we encountered a long line to clear security into the area around Tiananmen Square and the Palace Museum. This process is new since I was here 11 years ago. 

 

One enters the Forbidden City after passing through the Gate of Heavenly Peace (below) and a series of enormous courtyards.

 

Inside there are guides offering their services, but we opted for a GPS audio tour which was pretty nifty; it knew what area we were in and provided the appropriate commentary as we wanted through the complex.

The palace was built in 14 years in the early 1400s and served until 1912 as the political center of China for 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The complex, which includes 980 buildings and nearly 10,000 rooms, is the most visited art museum in the world, with over 14 million visitors annually. Surrounded by a 170 ft wide moat and 26 ft high walks, the palace was well defended.

There are beautiful, impressively huge buildings and courtyards.

 

 

 

Auspicious creatures decorate the premises.

 

Workers are busy with never ending restoration efforts.

 

And intricately carved mythical beasts stand guard on the eaves.

 

 

 

Outside of the complex, northwest corner.

It was beautiful. But crowded. And hot (upper 90s). And we were jet lagged and thirsty. So we took a cab to a dumpling place recommended in our guidebook, but it was closed. We ended up dragging ourselves back to our hotel through the descending smog and humidity, grabbed a late lunch and crashed until early evening. 

We walked down WangFuJing street after sunset when things had cooled down, people watching and window shopping.  This famous shopping street is the epitome of China's blend of communism and capitalism, with an emphasis on the latter. You can buy anything from a Peugeot to a grilled sparrow on a stick. Or water, which is what we brought back to our hotel for our trip to to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs tomorrow.

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Fun fact of the day: our hotel room has a bathroom with an optional full viewing option (for those who can never overshare).

 

 

 

2017 Himalayas

I'm hoping to be able to blog from our upcoming trip to the mountain kingdoms of Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. In case it works, here's a link to get you started.  As usual, new posts will show up in the side menu. 

Elaine and I leave today, and will be home June 15. We start with 3 days in Beijing and then join our Road Scholar group which arrives Monday morning. Early Tuesday we depart for Lhasa and the adventure begins.  

Wi-Fi access will be sporadic at best, but I'll post if and when I can, likely several days worth at a time. Namaste! 

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After a 2 hour classy and bumpy ride due to weather, we made it to our departure gate in Toronto just as they started boarding. Now we are wallowing in our  enormous work stations, I mean, sleeping suites while we await departure. Elaine remarked that you'd think we never flew before; we are oohing and ahhing over all the space and features as we sip our mimosas.

Next stop, Beijing!