I've been to one of the 7 wonders !

We all knew that Great Wall of China is part of the 7 wonders of the world. I'm glad that I manage to visit of the 7 wonders. Climbing The Great Wall was indeed an amazing experience. Plus, it is a detoxification journey because you will sweat a lot. There's three main great wall of China- Badaling, Mutianyu and JinShanling. We chose Badaling great wall for our first experience as we were told that it suits first timer the best.

We travelled to beijing north station and bought a ticket at the counter. I would advice you to buy the ticket one or two days earlier as the train to badaling is very limited. There's two trips everyday if I'm not mistakne One in the afternoon and one in the evening. You can take a bus there too but I have no idea where to get the bus. But you can take a bus to return to Beijing. You can easily find the bus at the exit. We met a guy from Singapore and he told us that he can only buy the 'standing' ticket because he was late. Standing ticket means you have to stand all the way throughout the journey in China. Yeah..what an odd system but it works for a country with huge population.

The train travelled around 110km/h which is pretty fast. The seats are spacious and they can turn the seats around if the train moves in the opposite direction.

When you reach the station, you will see this sign or you can just follow the crowd. All of them will go to the same place for sure.

The front door of Badaling.

They do sell tickets in the train. They will tell you that the queue is very long and try to persuade you to buy the combo ticket (great wall+museum). We chose to buy the tickets at the counter instead as we don't really trust any ticket agent/tour agent in China after the trip to Lv Shun. The best thing is they offer student price too! (RM 22.50 if I'm not mistaken)There's no queue at all when we were at the counter.

Climbing The Great Wall is never an easy task. But, I'm amazed by the China citizen as old man/woman who is around the age of 60 climbed The Great Wall with us. Besides that, kids were running here and there. haha. I remember a man telling his son 'If you think climbing The Great Wall is difficult, what do you think about the people who built this? Don't you think they are more tired than you?"Very true right? It hit right at our heart. ahha.

There's a few place with stairs and some without stairs. But, the slope are steep. very very steep. It was like 60 or 75 degree. Luckily there's handle all along the way so that we can hold it to support our body so that we can go further. Do wear a pair of good shoes if you do not want to roll down the great wall.
 
If you can't finish TGW, you can look for this sign and go down by cable car. Pretty useful huh? We chose to walk instead of using the cable car though.
 

We finished the great wall in 2 hours plus. It was pretty fast actually. The reason is because our train reached there around 11am and our train back to beijing was 3pm. So, we didn't rest much because we were afraid that we will missed the train.

If you are going to visit Badaling, do walk till the end as the scenery will be different and the sense of achievement is very fullfilling. We met a few people who went there with a tour and they told us that their tour guide asked them to walk back when they reach the first hill. They do not have enough time to finish their journey. They do sell souvenirs and food at the exit.

Let me show you some picture before I end this post :)

The view from top.

 Me and my travel partners at TGW.

 Us at the exit ! There's a bear farm at the exit. Nah..not panda bears. Just the normal brown bear. You can feed the bears too.

There's buses at the exit which will send you to Beijing city. Or you can just walk for 10-20 minutes from the exit to the main entrance and then you can take the train back. The taxi driver there told us that the walk will take us about 50 minutes and he wanted to charge us RMB 100 for that. We didn't take the taxi as we were not rushing for time at all. Luckily the walk was short enough :D

I do think that your stamina must be real good to complete the whole journey. Bring more water and also some snack.It's common to see people enjoying their picnic at TGW. Btw, the toilet is very far from each other and we will need to walk very far to the toilet. I didn't went in and hence I can't tell how's the toilet. :)

If you are planning to get something memorable, you can engrave your name on the keychain. I think it cost around RMB 10 or more for those fancy ones. It's like a small certificate because they will write the date you climb TGW. Don't get them at the souvenirs shops below TGW.  They are so overated. You can get it at the start of The Great Wall. It's cheaper compared to the one at the exit. =) 

That's all from Badaling.

If you are interested in climbing The Great Wall, let me know!

We can do it together someday.

Lots of love,

Iuhnix