Sharks Swimming on the Great Wall

An hour before I reached the entrance of the trail head, I experienced chest pains on the bus. I recalled a similar experience with my train ride in Italy to Pompeii three years ago. The areas all around my fourth chakra were tight. An hour and half into my hike on the Great Wall I had chest and lung trouble. I was in a lot of pain. I saw in the past I had been a worker carrying a road brick to build this part of the Great Wall. I was a young man, carrying a large stone brick over my right shoulder. I was very tired, over worked and working extended hours. I fell asleep while walking and fell over the wall with the brick I was carrying landing on my neck and head smashing onto the mountainside. I died quietly and instantly in my sleep. I felt no pain.

The chest and lung trouble went away after this and I was able to enjoy the beauty of the trail. The Great Wall is truly magnificent and beautiful. I was glad to be spending hours hiking it. It is to be experienced. I was approached by two local free lance/independent contractors under the hats of travel tour guide, bag carrier, book-post card seller for their services. One was a female of 23 looking like she was going onto 38 and the other a young man in his twenties. They both work on the Great Wall everyday. Their livelihood depended solely on travelers trailing the Great Wall. They were persistent in walking with me offering to carry my pack and trying to convince me that I cannot make it through the 5-6 hour hike and should take their recommended guided short cut off a lone trail. I was offended by their discouragement, I may go slow but I backpack and hike regularly and I make it to my destinations in joy. Smart rule I go by as a female traveling, “never part away from the tourist or busy areas and go off on unclear, unknown, no man trail, streets, areas.” I didn’t know what to do with these polite persistent locals who continue their selling pitches in any way to make a yuan.

I wondered what was our affinity that brought us together? Of all the people why us, together? I noticed this woman was my lady in waiting in the past. She served me. It was her job, she was paid to do, it was all business and she did a good job in taking care of me. This man was her husband in that life who also worked for me. Now they have their separate families but still spend all day together on the job as acquaintances. I continued to let them walk with me without encouraging them or discouraging them or any interest in making a sale. They were good with caretaking details and kind. The lady would give me a hand up some of the steep steps, the man would show me things, tell me bits of history here and there. I learned to enjoy their company.

Because they walked with me, the other Great Wall sales sharks selling, beer, chilled bottled water, etc… stayed away from me. In many ways, it was a nice protection so I could enjoy my hike. They walked as far as the boarder of Jin Ling to the Si Ma Tai section. At this point, they begged for me to buy a guide to Great Wall book to me for 40 yuan. It was over priced, it can be purchased for 10 yuan. I was not interested in hauling any weight and had no intention to make a purchase to begin with and they were clear of this. For old time sake, I handed them 50 yuan and thanked them for walking with me. I told them they will have to share that and divide it however they both saw what would be of equal division to them. We parted, I proceeded toward the second half of my hike and they quickly headed back to the trail head in scout for more travelors.

Chicken Ride

I joined a day tour group run by the hostel to Jin Lin and Si Ma Tai Great Wall. I had done my research the day before like I was advised by the locals to make sure not to get scammed because even the locals get scammed. I have to check details on whether or not the tour takes me to specific part of the Great Wall I intended on, because some tours will just drop you off at any part of the Great Wall and called it delivering what it promised. Yeah, the Great Wall is vast it can be seen from the moon. So some people would spend a day on the mission to the famous Great Wall and got nothing much out of it because not all tour groups have contracts with the famous parts of Great Wall to park their buses or even have access to the entrance tickets. So I found out the only way to get to outskirts where Great Walls are, is to get onto a day tour group. Fortunately, I found out about this trip through my European bunk mate Matt from Sweden who checked in late last night. I didn’t pre register, paid for it all this morning at 5:30am after breakfast. My trip included only the round trip bus ticket for 100+ yuan. It was a 11+ kilometers hike over 5+ hours. There is no turning back once you step onto the Great Wall, this particular trail is all the way or no way. Most of the Great Wall visits included a tour of the Ching Lings, Ching tumbs. But this one being in the direction of east towards the ocean instead of the tumbs on the west by Henan, and due to the longevity of the trail, it stood as a single event on its own.

For breakfast my roommates and I went to the same place I ate yesterday, it was the only place within foot steps, up and fully running at 5am in the morning. The owner remembered me and was proud of the fact I spoke English and brought westerner to her breakfast eatery. All the workers paid attention to me in awe. I watched both mornings on how this female owner took care in dealing with her business matters. She was gentle and detailed. She took her time in taking care of everyone’s orders with courtesy. Not once did she cheat anyone of their money. There was a kind of class and refinement in her that is not often found in the hole in the wall food industry. She was a beautiful person to watch. The workers commented to me how great that I was educated and spoke English fluently. I ordered plain rice buns to go and stuffed them with all you can eat complimentary fresh vegetable pickles. I packed them in with my camera, journal, and 3 liters of water. I knew it would be my only meal for the next twelve hours of the trip. I preferred it over a bag of potato chips.

I got onto a tiny shuttle bus, sold to be luxurious and comfortable. It was cramped with 35 tall strong boned Europeans and me. The seats were lumpy and the motor was loud, it was one rough ride for me. As I starred out the window with busy Beijing behind me heading towards the unknown, I felt like we were all chickens on a chicken truck happily chatting away not knowing if we would be sold for slaughter or not. I am very sensitive to industrial sounds. The loud motor from the bus was difficult for me. I put on ear plugs, ah… my savor, my magic scrunchies. Two tiny little blue things that goes into my ears that helps me fall asleep in cheap youth dorm style bed with anyone coming in and going out at any hour with infinite scales of music of the night being played in unique symphonic form called, the human snore. It also works really well when someone is machine gunning me with their tongue, I would hide my bullet proof secret weapon tucked within my ear underneath my black long hair. I have survived many attacks this way. My other secrete weapon is to remove my glasses especially when someone is giving me a toxic vaporizing nuclear stare down. Yes everything and everyone is beautiful when it’s all a blur like a Monet painting. All the details of prickly tensions are gone, just beautiful soft blurs of color to relate to. Ah…

I folded my legs to half lotus, pulled out my beads and recited the Great Compassion Mantra in my mind. The Great Compassion mantra has been my most dependable, reliable, trustworthy traveling companion ever since I first memorized it over a decade ago. I wasn’t a Buddhist back then, I just heard it, found it to be beautiful, liked it and wanted to memorize it because the vibration felt really good. I found it be a miracle cure for everything from salvaging a terribly cooked meal, to body aches, to relationship problems, to falling asleep, and joy. I highly recommend trying it out. You can go to http://www.dharmaradio.org/ for a download.

Sandy the Tour Guide

On the Si Ma Tai section of the Great Wall hike I met up with Matt and a lady from Germany who is studying Chinese Medicine in WuHan. Matt was into photography. He is a quiet poetic fellow. The German girl was chatty and had to have the last word in everything. This drove Matt nuts, he wanted her to shut up. We kept a friendly distance, far enough to not have her in our ears close enough to watch over her since she was the last one in our group trailing far behind. I later found her vandalizing the Great Wall by happily carving her initials on the stones. Like a bandit, when she noticed I was watching her, she mischievously ran like a raccoon whom had just been caught stealing food.

On the trail, locals thought I was a tour guide since I was translating for both of them. So they didn’t approach me with their sales. I went along with it and played the part. I might was well have been a tour guide.

On the ride back the bus was filled with conversations on travel stories. I met lots of people traveling a week, three months, six months all over Asia, Russia, etc.... People spoke of it like a common thing they did, traveling whenever they have enough money and have it stretch as long as it can. I heard more stories on different parts of Asia, they all sounded fun to visit one day.

When I returned to the Hostel, I met Aki a Japanese new comer to the room just arrived from travels in Thailand. He had a broken strap on his sandal. We went looking for permanent glue at a nearby shop. He decided to take care of gluing then and there. He did glue his sandal strap back on. He also ended up gluing his fingers together in the process. Since I landed in Beijing without a tour book or map, I borrowed Aki’s map of China, he said he’s give it to me but it was in Japanese and he needed it for his China trip. I think I will go to a book store and buy one.

Pollution is terrible here in my opinion. It rained on the drive back into Beijing. The streets smelled like a big old clogged sewage. The combination of the rain and the air created a smell of raising the dead.

I also wondered what is in the lifestyle, the food, the air, that people have so much to spit to hack it out everywhere. This is something I doubt I will get used to.