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The Great Wall of China
aka Chang Cheng
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Inside a guard tower on the Great Wall, with more of
the wall in the distance. The Wall served several
purposes: 1) Protection from inturders 2) Communications - smoke or light codes could be transmitted from tower to tower, allowing messages to travel from the coast to the capitol to the Gobi desert very quickly.. 3) Transportation - much of the terrain covered by the wall is tough to negotiate. The wall served as an elevated highway for people and goods to move across. |
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The section of the Great Wall I visited was at a site
named Simatai. Here, the wall is very steep, and hasn't
been restored like other touristy sites you might see in
pictures with dignitaries. Speaking of dignataries, lots of Chinese literature state with pride that President Nixon remarked that only a great nation could build such a wall. Of course, they don't bother to mention all the resorces that literally went into it... many workers may even be buried inside! |
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This is the north side of the wall, opposite Beijing.
THis is where attackers would come. Though the wall
provided defense, any army that could climb the steep
mountains to get up tot eh wall could probably find a way
to climb up 10 more feet! Once again, the main defense would come from the troops stationed in the watch towers. (Assuming they couldn't be bribed!) Genghis Khan supposedly said that the strength of the wall was only as great as the strength of the people who defended it. |
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Some parts were in such disrepair you had to walk to the side. |
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Where there's a hand hold, there's a climb! I had to take my stab at conquering the wall. :) |
One piece of bad luck... Shuang negotiated
with a driver to take us to the wall and back... about a 60 mile
drive each way, plus 2 hours of waiting while we explored. She
was able to get a price 1/3 of what hotels and tours charge! When
we got back, the she and the driver started a heated discussion.
I asked what the fuss ws about, and she said he wanted more money
since it took so long. I was goin to give him a 25% tip anyway,
but all he was asking for was a few extra dollars! In all teh
confusion, I accidentally left my automatic camera in teh back
seat, so I guess he really got a good tip! Oops. At least I still
had my manual camera for the rest of the trip.