My Friends Were Almost Crushed to Death by a Crowd on the Great Wall of China and All I Got Was This Crummy T-Shirt

We headed up the Badaling Expressway for the mountains northwest of the city of Beijing, to the Badaling section of the Wall. On the way the city gave way to suburban areas and countryside, broken up by quarries, tourist businesses, a few farms, etc. The mountains took shape and rose in front of us. We were all very excited to see the first glimpses of parts of the Wall near the freeway.

We arrived through a congested maze of valley roads, clogged with the cars of weekend tourists and tour buses. The roads were lined with tourist vendors from old folks with stands, to sophisticated multilevel stores and restaurants. The Badaling section is the closest to downtown Beijing and we were about to find out, is popular because you can go up on cable cars.

The Wall was on steep slopes out here. Our guide, Joy, told us she would buy us tickets to the cable cars. Until then, we had thought this would just be a walk on the wall. When we got there we saw why most people took the cable cars. It was quite a climb. We were both a little nervous about the cable cars — six-person hanging, closed gondolas on a cable lifts like ones sees at other mountain tourist areas (except not all shiny and clean and red, like in the photos of the Alps, or what not). Nervous because, well frankly, the cloisonné factory was not the first indication or story we've heard about safety and the effectiveness of regulation in China. Who knows, we were both thinking, how well maintained those things are. We didn't betray our anxiety, however, so as not to convey it to the boy; he was very excited: a device, a conveyance, very train-like!!! I'm so glad he wasn't scared. Rebecca confessed she'd hoped he'd want to walk up (like one other couple in our group did) and take the cable cars down, but Ben wanted to take the cable cars both ways.
Once we got up there and started ascending a section of the Wall, we were grateful that we'd gone with the lift. It was very steep and we doubt we're fit enough to have done the walk in good time.

Before we got the a section of the Wall we could walk, we had to wait in a long line, in a big crowd, surrounded by locals selling everything from hot dogs and marinated boiled eggs to t-shirts and decorative jade. By far, the Wall is the most crowded place we've been so far.

Once on the Wall itself, it was still very crowded. We walked up slowly, taking photos and resting often because of the steep grade.

There was a serious bottleneck of the crowd at one point. One spot on the relatively narrow wall had a vendor's stand set up on one side, and made it much more narrow. We were stuck in the middle of a group literally pressed up against one another, unable to move. People began pushing. It was quite distressing. Headlines about crowd panic and people began trampled to death ran through both our minds, though we didn't share this with each other until later in the day, when Benjamin was asleep. We were stuck that way for at least 10 minutes until numerous people began pushing more and shouting. We decided to try to go back down, but couldn't get over to the unmoving group heading back. What happened was very confusing: the shouting intensified; some guy was talking into a bullhorn. Suddenly Rebecca — who'd been holding Benjamin the whole time — rushed forward and to the side into a space that had opened up. A few guys were holding people aside and signaling a stream of us up and through the crowd. We got to a more open space and stopped to rest and regain our composure. We took more photos then headed back down. The treacherous bottleneck had eased and we could get through much more easily now.

The views were unbelievable, and so frankly were the crowds.

I hope to report from our people-watching on the Wall and describe how Benjamin's celebrity treatment, remarkably, only intensified up there.

Now, though, I really should post some photos and go to bed.