Great Wall

The Great Wall at Ba-Da-Ling


Earlier I commented on walls and their roles in securing the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. Well there are walls and there are walls. Felicity and I are off to see a wall.


One morning Felicity and I jump the train in Beijing and head to the northern mountains. As the train grimped higher into the cordillera we started to see a structure snaking up a mountain side. People on the train became restless then excited. We leave the train at Ba-Da-Ling.



The sun is strong, the day is heating up and Felicity does not have a hat. So the first task is to go shopping. Felicity tries on quite a number of largely useless hats before she finds the right one. No! That is not it!


Then we head for the wall. Within minutes I have made my first friend. His hat has a solar powered cooling propeller so I figure he must be a cool dude. He thinks I am cool too.







We first mount the wall at the castellated watchtower lowest in the valley. Felicity breaks out into the sunshine in her new practical "Great Wall" hat.







Generally the wall follows mountain ridges so they occupy the high ground. Occasionally it runs into precipitous walls, natural impediments, so construction stops. Here Felicity and I have come to such an end. Above you can see a watchtower.






Looking the other way one sees the wall snaking down to the valley floor then, dimly, on.




At the beginning the wall is crowded with eager visitors but as we climbed and descended, then climbed again, crowds thinned.









Against this Great Wall backdrop one can now see Felicity's new Great Wall hat, serving her well that sweltering hot day.






At its steepest declines the wall was usually stepped but there were sections that were not. I took up trying to ski down some of these steep but smooth sections on my slick sandals. It was a risky venture.






At the back of our minds was always this astonishment: How the Great Wall could have constructed on such challenging terrain? Equally so, the incredible cost of that construction in resources and human life.



So while reveling in the spectacular beauty of the scenery we remained aware of its dark and bloody past.



One of the problems with going to the end of the Ba-Da-Ling wall is that you have to trek back. We forgot that on our outbound leg the sun had been climbing and the land warming. The hike back was mostly downhill so that made it bearable.


We were hot and tired as we got to valley bottom. Looking back across the valley we took one last peek at the great wall snaking across the northern frontier. At one time the wall extended 1500 miles.




Soon we were climbing aboard the return train on our way back to Beijing, all in air-conditioned comfort. Several days later I headed back to Vancouver.





Beijing - June 21st - a very special day for me, the Summer Solstice - so it was serendipitous for me to have my longest solstice ever.

It happened this way: I flew out of Beijing at 5 pm local time. Flying east (against the sun and clock) about three hours later I flew back into June 20th. A few hours later, upon hitting the International Date Line, I flew back into June 21st and the solstice, continuing on to Vancouver that June 21st. By my calculation I clocked into June 21st twice in 2011 and spend a total nearly 40 hours on June 21st. My longest day ever!

Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven





After bailing on Forbidden City, Felicity and I jump the sparklingly new, brashly efficient, spotlessly clean, fast-fast-fast Beijing subway and next thing you know we are walking across an overpass on our way to the Temple of Heaven.




Like Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven grounds are vast. Unlike Forbidden City they are more garden-like, peaceful and bucolic, dare I say heavenly.



One of the things I, as a moderately avid birder, miss is songbirds. There were few to be seen climbing Silver Mountain and almost none, other than magpies, in urban Beijing. Here were a few birds of which the most interesting and common was the azure-winged magpie.


So Felicity and I strolled blissfully, snapping a few pictures and contemplating heaven while approaching the temple.


As we made our way toward the temple named The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (the largest of several such prayer halls) we passed people eagerly playing games, many with spectators crowded around intent on every move. I did not recognize any of the games.




Triple gabled and nearly 40 metres high, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests draws one's eye pleasingly heavenward - the place beneficent rains descend from. Or at least that is one way to connect the dots.





Surrounding the temple are gardens with richly colored flowers. And high walls. Unsurprisingly, if named appropriately, Forbidden City was also enclosed by high walls. High walls deter the peasantry, imperial contenders and invaders. One can imagine during dynastic times the poverty and squalor outside the walls and the imposed peace within.



Leaving the Temple of Heaven we pass local musicians most skillfully playing wonderful, highly complex music. I quietly watched in fascination for quite some time.




Near sundown we depart the park to made our way back into the urban landscape. Once beyond the walls we saw, amongst many new automobiles, remnants of some fast disappearing ways.

Forbidden City

Forbidden City

There be dragons and monsters there. Everywhere. This dragon and three others like him emerge from a cornice.



One of the few allowances to modern Chinese history is this huge portrait of Chairman Mao right over the main, central entrance to the Forbidden City.


We are going in!





Entrance to the Forbidden City is a dream for Chinese everywhere so, with 1.4 billion aspirants, things get a little busy. Here a charming Chinese woman is excited for her adventure.





Security is on full display and sightings of the army are frequent. Forbidden City is all part of one huge - incredibly huge - governmental centre which includes, only for one example, Tienanmen Square.






Once inside one is beset with over-spilling imperial splendor and eye-numbing opulence. After a while it becomes sensory overload. But not quite as bad as parts of the Vatican.




Most buildings seem to have had special purposes so that one might have a throne room in one building for catching early evening land breezes and another one for the late morning song bird - I exaggerate of course but it takes a lot of excuses to build 9,999 rooms, the number claimed for the Forbidden City.




And the exteriors of these monumental buildings are as ornate as the interiors. All in good taste they maintain great order and coherence through repeating themes. Often in stacked repetitions.





In this huge expanses of laid brick - giant plazas - walkways, bridges, lagoons and ponds break what would otherwise be a brilliant monotony. Many statues line the pathways. Here are the imperial tortoise and crane.



Lions and dragons have their run of the place!




Errant monks as well. This guy was a favorite with his joyful bouncing step.








We soldier on for well over a mile. Clearly the overwhelming overall purpose of the Forbidden City was to indulge the emperors court while loudly displaying wealth and power. Not quite Xanadu, still one can appreciate Coleridge in these circumstances with the stately pleasure domes and all.




One area of the Forbidden City one got a very good sense about its purpose and design - this was the sequestered area for the Emperor's Harem. Dragons guarded the central area, no doubt warning would-be interlopers that they would suffer a grisly end if they messed with the emperor's playthings.




It had an almost elegant suburbanity about it. One could well understand this: for a young woman to get the imperial nod was a family fortune in the making. The girls lived in overwhelming luxury, at least while in favor.





Dazed by the numbers, Felicity and I picked our way back through the city and out the main entrance, putting Chairman Mao and the Forbidden City behind us.

Silver Pagoda Mountain

Silver Pagoda Mountain?

Alright, I do not have any idea what the name of the mountain is. I think the names for the pagodas are the 'silver pagodas' because Felicity describes them as les pagodes argent in her french language blog. Be that as it may, I wandered around Beijing for a few days before Felicity grabbed me and took me on a hike, climb, whatever, into the mountains north of Beijing.






We went with a hiking group that included several of Felicity's fellow students then working in Beijing. We disembarked our bus in a small village and commenced our hike through dry, occasionally terraced agricultural and orcharded lands. Most common were groves of Manchurian Walnut. Here I have a small, green inedible peach - I think?




From commencement pinnacles were visible through the morning mist. Always the eagle eye, Felicity espies the peak we are to summit.







The land has been inhabited and intensively used for generations, probably millennia and so it was common to see small shrines and temples along the way. This was only one of many.



I took a fancy to this stone mill.






It was hot and dry this day, in fact nearly every day if the locals are to be believed, and I had a touch of fatigue what with travel, age, jet-lag. So Felicity bounded in front and I lagged behind.






For the steepest stretches there were often carved granite stairways and frequent viewpoints for rest and overseeing the magnificent vistas below, far below! To the side are three NYU law classmates hamming it up, stealing an unlikely kiss!




Cascading down the granite faces were streams and at the base, pools. All of them were totally artifact so while attractive, quite unnatural. Felicity enjoys one such pool.



Then, thank gawd, we got to the summit and take a celebratory photo beside a sign that might say "no photos please".




After a few congratulatory moments we started the descent. Going down is the right way to go. Rather than grunting and sweating facing the ground immediately in front of you, you stand tall, taking in the splendid vistas as you breeze your way down the mountain side.






Some views were breathtakingly beautiful. It seems you can see forever.



Then form emerges from out of the mist below. We started to see the shape of a large open area plaza and a series of structures.




And then we are in the midst of the wonderful Silver Pagodas. Precious burial sites from dynasties past.





It was precious end to a marvelous day.