Visiting Simatai

Saturday Evening, 9pm

I just got back my hotel room after a very long day of site seeing. Of course I have jet lag, so I woke at 4am. Yikes. I used that time to check my email, talk to Ami in Israel and call home. Then at 6:30 I decided to exercise in the hotel gym. I knew I was going out to see the great wall later in the day, but I figured, good to get the exercise done with, even if I walk a little later. I had breakfast at the hotel, an extensive buffet, and I ate a lot, on the theory that who knows what kind of food I will get to eat later in the day.

At 8:30am Haiyun and his 5 year old daughter picked me up at the hotel, and we drove to the other side of town to meet Xiao and Niu. At least that was what I thought was the plan. Instead, though we meet with Xiao, Niu, Niu's girl friend, Niu's friend, Haiyeen and Gong Chen. Xiao, Niu and Haiyun I know from my visit to China last year, Haiyeen I interviewed on the phone a few weeks ago, and we hired her last week and Gong Chen has been working with the group for 6 months or so, but I've never met him. So it turns out that we are going to take two cars to "Simatai" -- a certain section of the Great Wall. Haiyun explains that he will drive me since he is a slower driver than Niu, and they don't want to scare me. That leads in to a few notes about driving in China.

I asked Hiayun about right on red. He explained to me that there is now requirement to stop, although it is a good idea to slow down. Argh. Well, that explains some of the insanity. Among other things, it turns out that Simatia is 80 miles from Beijing, so we are in for a long ride -- and don't forget that there is traffic even early on a Sunday morning. About an hour into the trip we reach the end of the highway and get on to local roads. The air has already cleared significantly, but the traffic is now horrific. It seems they are repaving the roads today. Slowly we creep along until we get to the portion that is freshly paved, though not marked. It must be a 2 lane road in each direction, plus a decent shoulder. Without markings though the cars are all over the place. I swear we were traveling in the wrong lane. Pretty soon we left the fresh pavement and got on to a 1 lane (each direction) road that was marked. Now might be a good time to introduce the "triple pass" maneuver.

Pretend your driving along, three cars stuck behind a slow moving overloaded truck. Or better yet, two cars and a (speedy?) truck, stuck behind a hugely overloaded truck. Yes, that sounds right. Obviously the speedy truck can't wait for a dashed line to pass, so he crosses the double yellow and tries to overtake the overloaded truck. Speedy is a misnomer, because these maneuvers generally happen on inclines, and so even the speedy truck ain't so fast. Anyway, that still leaves two cars. One inevitably (I saw this multiple times) decides that he cannot bother going so slow, and yet can't pass on the left, so he moves onto the shoulder to pass on the right. Sure. Why not. In the worst case he'll run over a cyclist or two. But that still does not make for a "triple pass". The second car, seeing all the lanes clogged with slow moving vehicles has no choice but to cross the yellow line and then enter the shoulder on the far *LEFT* side of the road, thus triple passing all the other annoying vehicles. Visibility, about 50 feet. Lucky for me, Haiyun generally did not participate in the triple pass maneuver, though he did ignore the double yellow line, and did try to pass from the shoulder. Yikes. By my count we were almost squeezed off the shoulder twice, and had 3 near head on collisions. At dinner, Haiyun told me that he's only had his license for 7 months. Hmm. I assured him that he was every bit as good as the other Chinese drivers on the road.

I did not take a photo of the 18 wheeler at the side of the road half on the shoulder half beyond the shoulder tipped over at 45 degrees facing the wrong direction. It did not immediately occur to me the cause, but in hind site this was definitely an ill-planned triple pass. Or, maybe even a quadruple.

One final note on driving in China... It would appear that pedestrians DO NOT have the right away. A friendly driver might honk to warn the pedestrian, but in general the pedestrians are totally ignored, even when they are in a cross walk.

I'm now too tired to do the Great Wall justice. Lets just say that we arrived around noon, packed up the backpacks with much water, and started climbing. Haiyun had chosen to go to Simatai instead of the "normal" place to visit the Wall, because it is more difficult hiking and thus much less crowded. This was true. While there were other people hiking the wall, even a couple speaking in Hebrew (surprise!), it really was not crowded. It was lot of tough climbing. I'm not sure how high the elevation was, but it was a good workout. From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simatai)

Simatai, (simplified Chinese: 司马台; traditional Chinese: 司馬臺; pinyin: Sīmǎtái) a section of the Great Wall of China located in the north of Miyun county, 120 km northeast of Beijing, holds the access to Gubeikou, a strategic pass in the eastern part of the Great Wall. Originally built during the Northern Qi dynasty (550-577) and rebuilt in the Hongwu years of the Ming dynasty by Qi Jiguang, this section of Great Wall is one of the few to retain the original features of the Ming dynasty Great Wall.

Simatai Great Wall is 5.4 km long with 35 beacon towers. Ingeniously conceived and uniquely designed, this section of Great Wall, inimitable and diversified, has incorporated the different characteristics of each section of the Great Wall. No wonder the famous specialist of Great Wall, Professor Luo Zhewen, says: "The Great Wall is the best of the Chinese buildings, and Simatai is the best of the Great Wall." UNESCO has designated Simatai Great Wall as one of the World Cultural Heritage sites.

On way down, my I decided to take the "Inertia ropeway" I'm afraid of heights, and a little skeptical of the condition of amusement park rides, etc. Especially in China. But after reading the "PASSED SAFETY TEST" sign, I thought I might take a closer look. As I was evaluating, knees shaking, Niu was busy buying 4 tickets. Before I knew it, I had no choice. I put on the harness, clicked on to the steel cable, and jumped. You know, it was not quite as scary as I expected. On Monday I will post the pictures from Haiyun's camera so you can see me waving as I descend. You cannot really see in the picture below, but the cables go all the way to the dam.