Once in Beijing, of course I had to see the Great Wall of China. And it was stunning.
I’m slowly starting to look back on the last few years of travel. Not only have I flown halfway around the world what feels like hundreds of times, I’ve battled jet lag – sometimes more, sometimes less happily – and perfected my talent for getting to know cities with millions of inhabitants like Beijing completely within 24 hours (or at least trying to). Until the ultimate sightseeing and travel burnout. Yes, there is such a thing. In Beijing, I made it to the Great Wall of China in Mutianyu, to the Forbidden City, to two gluttonous feasts with full plates (they like to serve up in China) and even to one of the most stupid tourist traps I’ve ever fallen into in 24 hours.
More and more often, I find myself squinting at the Germany shelf in the travel book section of my favorite bookstore instead of looking at the latest books on some faraway destination, as I usually do. Other people dream of exotic destinations like Beijing and the Great Wall of China, I sometimes dream more of wet beach walks on windy North Sea islands or worse, hikes in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. But don’t worry, this blog will probably never become a politically correct I’ve-seen-the-world-and-now-no-one-can-sustain-it blog. As a flight attendant, I will forever remain the worst contact person for this anyway. For someone like me, who has actually only had the worst wanderlust in the last few years, a nice feeling. Finally, no restlessness, but satisfaction about what I have left there in retrospect travel memories like from Beijing. Or who would have thought that I would ever stand on the Great Wall of China?
For the first time in Beijing.
I must have had a good day – on the street I saw only a few people wearing respirators and there was no sign of a smog bell. Could I probably leave mine at the hotel – my company at the time provided a mask for each crew member, then it usually had to be really bad. In general, Beijing made a surprising first impression on me. Somehow, I thought, you should feel more communism, so everything gray in gray as before in the GDR, long lines at fruit stores, lurking everywhere secret service officers, control without end and nothing with shameful capitalist stuff like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. Hurray for unprejudiced travel! But all was not. Or at least not obviously. It did not become love between me and Beijing. But quite good friends. Later I was to get to know China in a completely different way!
➜ You can find all travel reports on my China page
Hey, I’m Tatiana and I’m the blogger behind The Happy Jetlagger. Since 2014, I’ve been sharing my personal travel stories on this blog. I don’t have a big team behind me, so I’m pretty much a one-person show: All recommendations are fully researched by just me!
From Beijing to the Great Wall of China: Mutianyu or Badaling?
The first insight: The Chinese do not call the Great Wall of China the Great Wall of China in English. But Great Wall. Makes sense, in China every wall is Chinese. From Beijing you can get to the Great Wall relatively quickly, by car you can be there in about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending on the place. There are two places that are particularly good for a trip from Beijing: Badaling and Mutianyu.
While Badaling is also accessible by bus and train, Mutianyu can only be reached by car. Mutianyu is therefore not quite as crowded as Badaling, which is something like a Great Wall pilgrimage site and must be bursting with tourists. Mutianyu, on the other hand, was quite pleasant, no crowds – and the weather was unique. Also uniquely hot and sunny – sunscreen was THE tool of the trip!
➜ Book your tour to Mutianyu from Beijing*
And then I stood there, as a little dot on this huge centuries-old endless wall that is supposed to be over 8,800 kilometers long. Quite crass. And it looked like in a movie: Hilly mountain landscapes in lush green – over which then up and down and around it the great wall meandered. Unbelievable that this was built by man in the middle of nowhere.
Down you can again with the cable car or on foot. Or tobogganing on the toboggan run. Which is actually really fun. Unless you have the only tobogganing expert in front of you who doesn’t realize that the brake is a brake and not a throttle. And so we just tobogganed down into the valley at the fabulous speed of three kilometers per hour. My motorcyclist self cried. But still: I have actually seen the Great Wall of China!
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