Hello, my dear Hive fellows!
Welcome to my another travel diary to the Great Wall of China which is one of the 7 wonders of the world and this one is the largest man-made structure the world ever had! Typically, the Great Wall refers to hundreds of walls at the northern China on the mountains to protect the ancient China from the invaders from the north. There were several groups on the north side of China such as Mongols were the most powerful; Genghis Khan was one of the most powerful not only in the eastern part of the world but also the Mongol empire was expanded in the eastern Europe also and had several wars throughout the history.
It is a magnificent structure and really it will touch you when you put your first step on it. It is still a tough realization for me to think that each of the stones used for building the Great Wall was transferred to the top of the mountains without the modern technologies at that time! Several parts of the wall were built during the 7th century BC, with other portions being built by Qin dynasty (220-206 BC), China's first emperor.
In total, more than 21,000 km of Great Wall has been built though very little of the Qin wall remains. Later, numerous consecutive dynasties constructed and maintained extensive lengths of these walls.
The most of the walls that are preserved today were built during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and people call them Ming Great Wall. The part of the wall that I have visited last week is also from the Ming dynasty.
The tour was a sudden one for me as an event organized by the Science City Authority of the Huairou District to enhance the living standards of foreign researchers living here through a close interaction from the relevant personnel to hear the difficulties we are facing and any suggestions to upgrade the living standards here in a far district (70 km) from the Beijing City center.
We were taken to the location around 8:50 am in the morning and we have entered to the Great Wall area around 9:30. We were lucky to use the cable car to climb to the 18/19 number watchtowers among 22 watch towers which are open for the tourists and the others are closed to preserve.
This a 5A category tourist spot which is the highest rating in China and you can always notice so many foreigners visiting the Great Wall throughout the year as each of the season it becomes different due to the different surroundings.
We were allotted around 2 hours as scheduled to explore the wall. Truly speaking some part of the wall is so steep that it will make you so tired if you have no hiking experience. Though this is my 2n time to climb to the great wall, I was not ready to finish the journey till the last watchtowers. I have enjoyed the fresh air and surrounding beauty and covers may be adjacent 2 or 3 watchtowers.
Winter has gone already and summer is going to come soon here but the weather is not so good due to the dusty and air pollution. The view distance was not good at all and the distance between mountains and the part of the Great Wall was missing during the middle of the day that day. So, the close views were up to the mark and I have taken several photos surrounding the area.
We have leaned about the basic functions of the wall and the watchtowers and the garrison towers from our tourist guides. We were amazed by the age-old techniques to circulate the signals throughout the whole northern area within a very short time.
The watchtowers are designed for the shelter and the whole wall is built as a continuous observation and can be used for fighting from the wall to the enemies on the ground. There are specific designs to the whole of the Great Wall to save the soldiers from the enemy’s arrows. They used to live on the wall for several days and back to the ground for their necessary supplies on a regular basis as it is very difficult to have regular up down to the wall.
Also, we learned about the danger signal transferring system and the secret codes to express the number of enemy soldiers, the direction and location of the attacks and many more. As much as I remember, they use various numbers of flames to indicate the number of enemies attacking them in hundreds or thousands also.
Also, they use different colors of smoke to indicate the direction of the enemy attacks and the location of the attacks. Though it is an age-old style but for me it is like a story as my home country is almost plain land and we don’t have such wall to protect us. Naturally, we have rivers that often make the enemies into trouble in the old history.
The Great Wall has a lot of stories to tell you from its construction and the difficulties that the people faced at that time. It reminds me how a nation can be so desperate to build such an enormous construction to save the kingdom which needs a lot of efforts, not a lot I have no word to make a realizable quantity. I heard many stories of tragedies full of sacrificing lives for the sake of the country’s people. The hunger, pains, natural calamities, everything were being addressed by those people without the help of our modern sciences.
Besides, the lives and the efforts the ancient Chinese put for making the Great Wall is nothing when I read the history of the massacre by the Mongols, especially Genghis Khan who killed more than you think in Beijing and the surrounding area at that time.
I am filled with history and the beauty to be a man to explore such a human made architectural marvel of the world. It will never disappoint you of you come to visit the Great Wall. It will remind human civilization about how tough times our ancestors have passed and how relentless efforts they have sacrificed for the well-being of our lives.
I hope you like my tour in such a fantastic place with great exploration. It was amazing to have such tours to a fantastic place like this, with the discovery of ancient world, to enjoy and lose myself away from my busy life! If you have any queries, let me know in the comments, and I will try my best to answer them.
Thanks a lot for your time and attention. I will catch up with you at the next one.
Wish you a great day!
