{"id":48,"date":"2004-09-26T22:52:51","date_gmt":"2004-09-27T02:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web1prod.sunflowerit.ca\/wordpress\/?p=48"},"modified":"2025-07-03T15:13:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:13:29","slug":"a-great-great-wall-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/china-2004\/trips-asia\/other-trips\/a-great-great-wall-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"A great Great Wall experience…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It seems the jet lag was worse than I first thought… on the last entry I was off by one day (i.e. Monday was actually Tuesday, etc.) Also, a note about the photos… when viewing them, we have added a caption at the top of each picture… enjoy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, we opted to visit the Tiantan Park (Temple of Heaven). We tried our chance at the local bus again. We got there with two buses… highly efficient even without bus lanes. Before entering in the Park, we took a taxi to a nearby hotel\/travel agency to buy transportation tickets to the Great Wall ($12 cdn pp). The visit of the Temple of Heaven was rather dull compared to our previous visit of the Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) and Imperial Summer Palace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, we got picked up at the hotel at 7:30am by a car and then we met up with a mini bus for our trip to the Great Wall that involves a trek between two access points i.e. Jinshangling to Simatai. Badaling is a third access point, which is said to be overly touristy and best avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 110km (3 hours) ride to Jinshanling was nerve raking to say the least (even compared to my experience in Latin America). I don’t quite understand it but if the same driving habits were used in North America they would certainly lead to chronic road rage – yet in China people just accept it. Surprisingly, there is no vulgar language or hand gestures… it is really amazing. Jessica, I really think you are best to take your driver’s exam in Canada! The driving is really crazy but it appears to obey to certain rules e.g. if you can’t pass on a double line on the left lane then try the right lane (bicycle lane) or if on-coming car or truck is less than 1.5 meters wide you can stay in the middle of the double line for passing a car (3 cars wide on a 2 lane highway like Highway 7 is Ok) or it is always best to pass in up-hill curve with no visibility… ouch!!!<\/p>\n\n\n