An Epic Tale of Epic Epicness by Roberto:
- Miss the tour bus with your language program to the Wall.
- Pace back and forth and rub your chin thoughtfully.
- Consult a guide book or website to find one of the sites on the Wall where one can spend the night.
- Ensure you have at least one good adventure buddy. THIS IS CRUCIAL.
- Find the nearly tourist-free location of Jinshanling, which allows for tourists to spend the night, is less renovated than closer parts of the Wall (to Beijing), and to reiterate an important attribute, IS NEARLY TOURIST-FREE.
- Tell your host family, only to have them tell the the program you are studying Chinese with, to have them tell you that you can’t stay on the Great Wall of China.
- Devise an evil plan to trick those trying to thwart you.
- Gather supplies ( A couple packs of yak jerky, a t-shirt thin bedsheet, money, thirst for adventure, and lack of any useful supplies including but not limited to: matches,flashlights, sleeping bags, mats, food, pillows, a real plan.)
- Head to long-distance bus station. (“Wait…where’s that again?”)
- Look around aimlessly in hopes locals will help.
- Victory dance when locals come to the rescue and you find the right bus.
- Eat as much as possible at nearby restaurant.
- Get on bus.
- Realize what exactly you are embarking on for the one and a half hour bus ride to the town of Miyuan.
- Arrive to Miyuan. Find you are completely lost and therefore have to take an expensive fake taxi.
- Haggle with the fake taxi driver…still expensive.
- Take a crazy drive with various close calls to the entrance of the Great Wall at Jinshanling.
- Get harassed by taxi driver who says he’ll wait for you, even though you plan to sleep at the site and then hike to Simatai. Shit bricks when the driver tells you the Great Wall at Simatai is “closed.”
- Ignore the driver assuming he is just trying to scam you so he can steal more money for the ride back.
- Realize that campground is not even near the wall, it’s just a couple tents on a pathetic patch of grass at the foot of the entrance. Make the easy decision to not pay to sleep there and plan to sleep on the wall instead.
- Buy about 10 bottles of water. Freak out some more when the vendor also says Simatai is closed.
- Take the steep stairs up to the wall.
- Have your mind blown by simply sitting on the Wall for a while.
- Begin hiking to Simatai.
- Take gratuitous amounts of pictures and continually exclaim how amazing this is.
- Meet a group of French tourists a couple hours in.
- Walk through a portion of the wall that is being renovated, despite workers saying Simatai is closed.
- Walk with the Frenchies for a while.
- Let the French group move ahead as they start asking where you plan to stay and if you would like to stay at their hostel.
- Arrive at what you believe is Simatai, are then told is not by two different French tourists who are also planning to stay on the wall.
- Cross a bridge over a small river and meet a couple other tourists, including an Australian and two Russians.
- Relief at realizing that you have arrived to Simatai after all.
- Come across lone Chinaman on the wall. He invites you to his restaurant/ hostel. Agree at “cold beer.”
- Take dirt path off of Wall to a hole NEAR the Wall restaurant (See what I did there?)
- Meet a Spaniard, and find the large group of French tourists.
- Find that the prices aren’t as ridiculous as expected.
- Sit around and try to understand where exactly it is you are, and ponder whether or not it is real.
- Find the Big Dipper and Orion’s belt.
- Converse with the world at the dinner table,sharing stories and laughs.
- Reject restaurant owner’s offer to pay him to stay in a tent on his concrete courtyard.
- Praise Zeus, God, Allah, Buddha, Hutizilopochtli, and other deities that the other backpackers are so much more prepared.
- Hike to the next tower with the two French tourists, the two Russians, and the Australian, whilst avoiding falling off the Wall thanks to their flashlights.
- Check out your slumber party spot under candlelight.
- Layout sheet. Look longingly at everybody else’s sleeping bags and mats.
- Fall asleep. Except not really since the only thing between you and rock and mountain is a t-shirt thin bedsheet. And it’s cold. No wait, it’s hot. I WANT TO SLEEP.
- Wake up at 6:00 AM to see a dozen Chinese guards. Remember the signs outside the tower…”DO NOT SLEEP ON THE WALL.”Also reflect on the paradox of just having the worst sleep of your life whilst having one of the best sleep of your life.
- Rejoice when it turns out guards don’t care and they just want to chat.
- Continue hiking to the tallest point in the area, about 1000 meters above sea level.
- Gain 500,000 “this is the life” points.
- Hike back down to Simatai to try and find a way back to Beijing.
- Get ambushed by restaurant owner who says the only way back to Miyuan (and by extension, Beijing) is by taking his expensive “taxi.”
- Ignore his feigned incredulity at your supposed stupidity.
- Make it down to Simatai to find it eerily empty.
- Discover that the Great Wall is technically closed at the location as the locals had warned, but find a bus that will make the 90-minute trip to Miyuan for a mere eight yuan.
- Take another bus from Miyuan to Beijing.
- Exchange contact information.
- Arrive in Beijing.
- Celebratory/ good-bye hugs and high fives for all the boys and girls.
