Another day in Beijing another day exploring. For convenience, we took a tour program complete with bus transport, tickets, and a tour guide. I'd definitely like to return to The Great Wall but I'd choose a less touristy entrance than the one I got on: Badaling. If you want to climb and hike the Great Wall, my tip is to avoid Badaling. | NL
Alweer een nieuwe dag in Beijing, een nieuwe dag met ontdekkingen. Voor het gemak namen we tour programma met alles erop en eraan zoals het vervoer, tickets en reisgids. Ik zou zeker terug willen keren naar The Great Wall, maar ik zou een minder toeristische ingang kiezen dan degene die ik aantrof: Badaling. Als je de Chinese Muur wilt beklimmen en wandelen, is mijn tip om Badaling te vermijden. |
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The Underground Palace Dingling
| The Underground Palace Dingling or the Dingling Mausoleum is a tomb of the 13th emperor (1573 - 1620) of the Ming Dynasty and his two empresses. Dingling Mausoleum is the only imperial tomb so far that it`s open for the public and for a small fee, you can enter this place. And of course, me being a fan of the history of China, I was very interested to see this last resting place of this late emperor of China. |
Worst Emperor
| We were visiting Wanli`s/萬曆帝 Mausoleum, the 13th emperor of China. Or 14th I am not sure. According to Wikipedia Wanli is considered one of the worst emperors in Chinese history because he was blamed for the cause of the downfall of the Ming Dynasty. Wanli was lazy and neglected his imperial duties plus he was also a heavy drug user of opium. Maybe all of these summed up reasons why his mausoleum got unearthed in the first place because he was not much worthy of a king? Who knows. |
| While I`m not sure about the reason behind unearthing this mausoleum nor I`ll probably never find out, people who dug this place up found a lot of (extremely) rare gems and cultural relics. |
The above ground of Dingling Mausoleum has a square front and right next a circular layout.
It symbolises the ancient Chinese philosophical concept of `heaven is round and the earth is square`. |
| Possibly am sitting on a 400 year old elephant. |
Pit Stop
| On to The Great Wall! I`ve been waiting for this to walk The Great Wall since I was a little girl but before we arrive there, we had a lunch pit stop at a roadhouse. |
| The food at this roadhouse was mèh... and on auntie`s advice I got myself the tomato noodle soup with fried egg because it looked the most fresh possible item at this roadhouse. And I didn`t got stomach ache or diarrhea at the end so. |
Great Wall of Badaling -八達嶺
‘ⁿᵒᵗ ᵃʳʳⁱᵛᵉ ᴳʳᵉᵃᵗ ᵂᵃˡˡ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ᵐᵃⁿ’, a famous line from one of Mao Zedong’s poems. What about good woman Mao? #feminism
Anyways! My family and I visited and hiked the most popular and famous part of The Great Wall : Badaling. Apparently 370 state leaders and VIPs has set foot on Badaling.
My advice: if you want to visit The Great Wall, do not go to Badaling. Why? Scroll down to see why. |
| We rode the cable car which took us to the highest tower of Badaling. We have waited a good 45 min in line. |
人山人海
| And this is why you should avoid Badaling. It was literaly packed of tourists including myself. I was like sailing along the stream of human waves. Big hugs and kisses to my auntie F. who took this picture of me!! |
| The next Great Wall hiking will be not at Badaling but at Huanghuacheng Section. It has a lakeside and most importantly: less and less tourist. |
| A medal (€2,60) for honour. And surviving the crowd of people. Or hiking the small part of Badaling. |
| Then it was time to go back down. |
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