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Great Wall of China -- Mutianyu Section

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Great Wall of China - Mutianyu Section
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suzhou, tong li - little venice water city
Beijing Cloissonet Factory - lavishly decorated copper, kiln-fired urns, pots, and plates
Forbidden City - Former "white house" to the Emporers of China
Great Wall of China - Badaling Section
Great Wall of China - Mutianyu Section
Beijing Hutong - 700 year old neighborhood with rickshaws and labyrinth streets
Ming Tombs - 400 year old excavation of the final Ming Emperor
Sacred Way, Sacred Path - Ming Tomb garden of stately and animal statues
Summer Palace - Former garden of the Emperors on a lake
Temple of Heaven - former Chinese Emperor worship area
Tiananmen Square - memorials, governement buildings, Mao's tomb
Beijing Lacquer and Woodcarving Factory
Suzhou City Traffic
Suzhou City Traffic
Suzhou - Fisherman's Garden, Master of the Nets Garden
Suzhou Humble Garden
Suzhou silk factory
Suzhou, Tong Li - Little Venice water city
funny signs gallery - funny chinese signs
Trip Preparation
Frequently Asked Questions
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MickTravels to China - Beijing, Suzhou
Trip Preparation
Micktravels Home
MickTravels to China - Beijing, Suzhou
The Mutianyu Section is one of the 4 places that the Great Wall of China is accessable to tourists. It is farther away from Beijing than the Badaling Section, so it is less crowded. It is longer, too. This section of the Great Wall is not near the road so you have to take a cable car, chairlift, or a hiking path to the top. Check out the pictures on my Panorama page, too!

You can't escape the gauntlet of vendors who want to sell you everything under the sun. Showers of "best quality" and "best price" rain on you from all sides.\n\nAll of this is on the only path from the parking lot to the entrance. Everybody wants to write down your name and give you a "business card," which is really just a piece of cardboard with their name and booth number. I still cannot figure out why anyone would care about the business card.

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Up we go on the cable car. A ride on the cable car is above and beyond the price of normal admission. In theory you can pay just to get in and then hike up to the top yourself. Few do.

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At the top where the cable car lets you off -- at tower #14. You can't see them all here, but looking west there are 6 towers (up to tower #20) that you can hike. I went the other way because it was longer (13 towers to go through). If you choose this way, it's steeper.

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A relatively rare flat spot. Yes I know it's tilted up, but there are no stairs!

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Mutianyu is one of 4 sections of the Great Wall open to the public. These sections have all been restored. From the looks of this brickwork, either it was restored a long time ago, they were sloppy, or they wanted to make it look old on purpose.

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Here I am with a long, long way to go to get to tower #1.

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A better angle. It's mostly stairs on the Great Wall.

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The Great Wall gently winds around the mountainside.

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Same view as the previous picture, but leaning outside the wall.

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This tower looks over a flat spot. You'll notice it's not nearly as crowded here as in Badaling. This section of wall is farther from Beijing, plus it's larger.

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I guess they don't want you to go down here, but they don't seem too serious about it.

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The insides of the towers all look the same. They look like what dungeons are supposed to look like. There are a few windows, but the light can't weave its way through all the pillars.

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Up they go. Parasols and business casual dress is common here, too, just as it was in Badaling.

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That's what I just came down. One advantage to heading east from tower #14 at the top of the cable car is that there is plenty of downhill.

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This is a slight dead-end offshoot path of the wall that leads to a separate tower. Above the tower and in the distance you can see the Great Wall continuing across the mountainside.

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Wow, it looks like it just slopes off into oblivion on the left.

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Great views from all vantage points.

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If left unattended, plants will start growing on the wall. Nobody is allowed on top of the near tower and there are trees growing.\n\nYou can see a trap door in the floor of the near tower. Most towers had these, but the ladders to access them were gone.

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Steps up into a tower. The unkept vegetation is growing out of the windows in the roof.

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Hey, there's a cannon up ahead. I wonder if it's genuine?

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Not too crowded, and the farther you go from the cable car entrance, the thinner the crowds are.

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Looking back at the cannon. It was the only one I saw here, or at Badaling.

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Not only were there hardly any kids here, but you rarely saw 2 of them together due to the fact that nobody in China is allowed to have more than 1. Already an entire generation has no concept of brother or sister, but with a population of 1.3 billion what else can you do?

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A young couple examines the day's digital photos beneath some deserved shade.

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Wow, I came from up there?!! And then some.

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Even with the thin crowds it was rare to get a shot with no people in it. This is looking out of one of the towers at the road ahead.

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Me in front of a tower.

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In the distance, to the left of the nearer ridge peak, you can see where the cable car deposits you. A lot of my hike was down so far.

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Always a great view.

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The wall comes out of a tower and swoops around to the left.

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Yikes, that's what I've got to climb next. Yes, it really is that steep.

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A decorative lance protrudes from the top of this tower.

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Looking up at that same tower with the lance.

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Off to the north you can see the wall winding its way through the desolate mountains. They say that the Great Wall is the only manmade object visible from space.

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Sloping down to nowhere. All the wall you see on the ridges in the background are closed to the public. There are trees and bushes growing out of it everywhere.

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The 2 guys at the bottom sitting and crouched over are both taking pictures. Notice that below them all is a garbage can. Who is the lucky person who gets to climb up to empty that? And then climb down with the garbage?!

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Yes it really is that steep.

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The buildings with sloping roofs are adorned with different figuines.

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More figurines on the roof.

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These figurines look up at the steep road ahead.

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Good thing they have railings, especially on the way down.

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Distance-wise, it's not far to the next tower. But its steepness makes it take about as long as the rest of the segments.

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Yes, it really is that steep. The railings came in extra handy on the way down.

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Awesome view of the Great Wall of China. There is an even better panorama picture of this in my Panorama section.

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End of the line - I'm at tower #1 looking beyond where I'm not supposed to go. And it's pretty obvious from the decay that you really don't want to be on that section. Who knows how solid it is, too.

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The trees grow all the way up to the next tower on this off-limits section of the wall beyond tower #1.

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Going back down.

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Yikes, it really is that steep. Hold onto the railing. Forget about handicapped access here.

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Beautiful view coming down.

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Only get to go down some of the way, then back up again. Yes, it really is that steep.

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Here I am on top of the tower.

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We didn't walk all the way back to tower #14 to take the cable car down. Instead we took the walking path, which turned out to be a real treat. Here we are off of the wall and on our way down.

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The pathway down from the Great Wall is well-maintained and not too crowded.

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According to this map, there are several pathways down.\n\nTowards the left of this map you can see the "Speed Slideway." That's actually a single-track Alpine Slide that will get you down the quickest. There's also a chairlift over there.

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This bug was calmly sitting on the path waiting for me to take its picture. I had enough time to put my extension tube on to get really close.

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According to the map a few photos ago, we made it to China Dream Stone City. It's a nice garden with some interesting stones (not in the photo).

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On the way back down I bought some T-shirts. The ploy they used to get you into their shops: "Hello!!! I remember you!!!..."

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