(This is not a photo of the Great Wall of China. Rather, it is of a dragon boat, the likes of which you can ride at the Summer Palace here in Beijing, for a fee. We will post our photos of the Great Wall when we overcome certain technical difficulties...)

CLIMBING THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA

Following the advice of the great leader, Chairman Mao, who said,

"He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man,"

we arrive at the Great Wall at a point called Mutianyu at about 11 a.m. This is not the perfectly restored section at Badaling, where most of the tourists go, but rather a part of an old Ming wall section that is falling into disrepair, despite previous restoration. Badaling, we had been advised, can be so crowded with tourists on some days that it is difficult to walk. Mutianyu, on the other hand, is reputed to have the most "stirring" views (Lonely Planet tourbook).

Our day-tour is going first to the Ming Tombs just north of Beijing. These are not just tombs, but tomb complexes with steps (of course), gates, temples, gardens, and burial mounds. Then, we are taken to a jade workshop (which is a tourist scam: you pay 50% more for a Great Wall tour without shopping included in the itinerary, than with shopping included.) Actually, it turns out that three shopping stops (jade, silk, and tea) were interesting and educational. One hour after the jade workshop, at which they naturally try to sell you jade jewellery and statues at highly inflated prices, we arrive at the Great Wall.

The tour guide gives us two hours to see the wall in order to make it back for lunch below.

There are only three tourists today on our minibus tour: Siobhan, me, and a thirty-something American, named Andy, returning home to San Diego from Sydney after a profitable stay in Australia doing advertising.

The entrance area of the Mutianyu access to the Great Wall is a tourist trap. There are stalls and hawkers selling all the usual souvenirs, including t-shirts saying, "I have climbed the Great Wall." There are restaurants, including a pretty swanky Subway. There are parking lots for lots and lots of buses and finally there are nice clean washrooms to use before climbing up to the wall.

Actually, it is smarter to take the cable car up to the wall because, if you have limited time or energy or it's 29 C. outside and humid, you will spend 40 hot and sticky minutes just climbing to wall level. The cable car does it in less than 5 minutes. But you have to pay for it yourself.

Siobhan opts to use the ladies' room. That usually takes a while because, just as in Canada, facilities for women in washrooms are just not as numerous as for men.

So, while we wait, I decide to grill the tour guide, a young woman in her early twenties, about politics. She is a student specializing in English at the post-secondary level and speaks it well. "Are you a member of the Communist Party?" I ask.

She indicates that she is not.

I respond with, "With all the wonderful things the Chinese Communist party has done for China, why not?"

She acknowledges that the Chinese Communist Prty has indeed done great things for China but indicates that she is not really interested in politics.

I follow up with: "Not interested in politics? Why not?"

She says, "In past times, everyone had to be interested in politics, but not today. In past times, everyone had to be for communism."

She goes on to explain that, in her graduating class (from high school?), about half of the students are interested in Buddhism and about half in communism.

"What about old people?" I ask. "Are they interested in politics and in communism?"

"Yes, yes!" she replies, "old people are interested in politics and communism, young people not so much."

I inquire, "Is it difficult to become a member of the Communist Party?"

She replies that, for the older generation, it was easy. Many of them fought in the armies led by the Chinese Communist Party and were given virtually automatic admission to the party. But today, it is different.

She explains, "Today, when you are eighteen, you may make an application to join the Communist Party. If your application is accepted, you must complete a one, two, or three year course to qualify. But in my class, no one applied."

"Not even one?" I ask.

"No, not even one. In past times, it was good to join the Communist Party. You could advance and you would be taken care of in your old age. Today, young people can start up a business and advance faster and make more money than in the Communist Party. So, not so many young people want to join the Communist Party."

Having learned that communism is somewhat passe among young people here, I spy Siobhan returning from the restroom. Time for our trio to make the ascent.

The cable car whisks us up to a platform in no time. But we still have a five minute climb up the inevitable stairs to the wall.

Today is a hot, humid, and smoggy day even one hour north of Beijing. The sky is yellow. Visibility is limited to about 5 kilometres. So it's a pretty good day to see the wall. The Great Wall runs along the spines of hills into the distance on both sides of us. Watchtowers dot the crest of hills, above and below the level at which we stand. You can see photos or videos of the Great Wall but nothing perpares you for sheer wonder of how the hell they managed to bring all the materials up here to build a work like this at such a high and crazy place. They certainly didn't have a cable car.

One minute you are walking down a nearly vertical flight of two hundred steps to a garrison post and up one hundred more to a watchtower. Then it's down again a hundred steps and up three hundred more to the next watchtower.

The whole wall has settled, leaning slightly to our right. Some of the step risers are three inches high, some are eight inches, and some, which I have to climb hand over hand, are about 18 inches high. Inside the watchtowers, some of the round arches are cracked and crumbling. Some of the steel staircases installed to access the roofs of the watchtowers are wobbly and/or partially dislodged from the walls. All of the above merely adds to the feel of antiquity and charm of the place.

What is disconcerting to our western eyes is that the huge bricks in the crenallated walls (walls with notches in the top for archers to shoot down on their enemies) are laid on a angle to match the angle of the incline of the hill. So, for example, if the slope of the hill is 30%, the bricks are laid at a 30% angle, giving the construction an unsettling effect for us. These walls can't be for real, can they? Brickwork should be level, right?

And did they really expect these walls to last?

But they have been here for quite a while. It was the first Qin emperor who in 221 BC, ordered that the existing partial walls, built up by the various warring kingdoms against invasions by nomads, be united in one long wall. And the walls were rebuilt at least twice more during later dynasties, especially the Ming Dynasty. Today, the wall is mostly in ruins, though the People's Republic has rebuilt certain sections for the benefit of tourism, collecting money from park fees.

Just for the record, the Mutianyu section walls were built in the Ming style by ramming earth for the core of the wall and constructing a 7.5-metre-high wall over it. These walls are lower than the standard 12-metre-high Ming walls on top of which you can take a leisurely walk today in Nanjing and Xi'an, for a fee. The Mutianyu walls are also much narrower than the restored walls in Nanjing and Xi'an, on which large bodies of infantry and mounted troops could drill and practice. We can't imagine how anybody could drill up on the Great Wall, much less bring up a horse. The bricks are also of much inferior quality than those in Nanjing, where each brick was stamped with the brickmason's name and the the families of the brickmasons were obliged to give a lifetime warranty for each piece. (Somewhere I read that the estimates of materials for the building of the Ming wall in Nanjing were so precise that only three bricks were left over when the wall was complete.) The Ming dynasty restoration of the Great Wall was done by conscripted and slave labour at tmemendous expense over the period of a century. And it didn't work to keep out the barbarians.

But you can access the Great Wall for less, if you're like the big Canadian kid of Chinese origin from Vancouver, named Sean, (whom we met at a hostel in Wuhan and who is doing China on 50 bucks a day) if you're willing to settle for a ruined piece of wall. He slept on such a section of wall for 2 yuan (34 cents) for a night.

Where we are today, there aren't many tourists and most are English-speaking. There are some Chinese as well. Most are making for the very highest watch tower which is in the near distance. So we do too. Huffing and puffing and sweating profusely, we advance down and up from watchtower to watchtower, coming at each height of land to an incongruous but strategically-placed Chinese vendor who is selling beer and pop and souvenirs in better English than some of the staff members working at hotel reception desks.

I keep asking the tourists who are returning from the highest tower if there is a defibrillator available up there. There isn't. But it gets a laugh.

Siobhan and Andy are taking photos at every opportunity which gives me the chance to press on head of them. I have my second wind now and plod steadily forward. The highest watchower is tantalizingly just ahead but every completed flight of stairs reveals yet another. The final staricase is nearly a perpendicular ladder of 18 inch stone steps. Hand over hand, I go up and up and up and - presto - I'm into the tower!

I throw down my knapsack, which basically has been stripped to just a water carrier, and take a few sips of water. My shirt and shorts are wet with sweat and stick to me. They feel cold in the shade and breeze inside the watchtower. Siobhan and Andy arrive and the photos begin in earnest.

We can only rest five minutes here or else forfeit our lunch, so it's straight back down again. Fortunately, at the next watchtower, we find a shortcut that leads to the cablecar. Only we don't take the cable car. We opt instead for the toboggan. The tobaggon is actually a steel slide on which you ride a plastic sled with a joystick between your legs that acts as a brake as you descend. It's very similar to the ride down the side of Blue Mountain at Collingwood, Ontario.

There are several disclaimers of liability on the slide indicating that the ride is dangerous. I am nervous at first that I might be flying out of the slide at some hairpin turn along the way. However, there is little chance of that, because the construction has been well-engineered and there are even nets installed at some of the sharper turns in the event that you ignore the signs and flags warning you to slow down. After a while, I gain enough confidence to become frustrated with the old man up ahead who is holding everyone up with his very slow descent.

At the bottom, the hawkers are still flogging the t-shirts which say, "I have climbed the Great Wall." They are shouting, "T-shirt for one dollar!"

I feel that I deserve such a t-shirt so I take out a US dollar, which is even worth less than a Canadian dollar. "Okay, I want a t-shirt, I say.

Most of the hawkers wave me away. But I am insistent. Where's my one dollar t-shirt?

Finally, one takes me to his stall where he shows me a rag with writing on it. That's the one dollar t-shirt. Bait and switch. He wants 80 yuan ($12) for the t-shirt he was waving in the air a moment ago on the street. I offer ten, then twenty. No dice from him. I walk away. Still no dice. I walk back and offer 25. Still no dice. I walk away. He calls me back. I have my t-shirt and go to lunch.

Siobhan and Andy are already tucking into lunch when I arrive with my well-deserved t-shirt. I am now a true man, according to the teachings of Chairman Mao. I'm afraid I can't say the same about Siobhan.