Badaling & Juyongguan Pass

So, when Kristy and I took our first trip to the Great Wall of China we went on a tour and in total the amount of time spent at the wall was around 1 hour and 45 mins. Now that may SEEM like a long time, but it includes the gondola ride, hiking up to get to the wall, and walking/filming/photos etc. Time really does fly! So since we had a free day in Beijing, we decided to try and make our way out to the other sections of the wall and do some more hiking!

After reading some traveler review, we decided to check out the Juyongguan Pass, and to travel there via… PUBLIC TRANSPORT! CRAZY.

Now, in Singapore and Malaysia we had traveled on subways and buses before with little to no problem, but China was a whole different ball game! Luckily, most tourist spots have English public transport direction floating around on Google, however, what it didn’t say was that it took us almost 4 hours to get to the wall! It was bus, subway, bus and finally we gave up and took a 10 minute taxi. Finally, when we got to our destination we were as you say, slightly disappointing :/ The Juyongguan Pass was literally two loops that went up either side of the mountain, and then came back down. Where was the beautiful wall that extended miles and miles in either direction?!

If you click on this map you’ll can see the layout of this section..and see if you notice a HUGE fail on the English :P

So we decided to make the most of it and climb on of the mountain. After reaching the top to view some stunning views and going to the washroom (yes, there are toilets on the great wall) we climbed down with another 2 hours to spare.

Now one thing about this section is that it’s only about a 10minute drive from another accessible section known as the Badaling Section. Now the Badaling section is the most popular tourist section. It is the section EVERYONE goes to because it the easiest and closest to get to from Beijing, it has amazing views, and its the most restored section of the Great Wall, so its very easy to hike.

We thus decided we might as well check out that section too, Kristy and I negotiated with this “Taxi driver” a price to take us to the other section. ( I put taxi driver in quote because it was really just a lady with a car that will give you a ride for cash, there are tons of them all over China)

Although this section was a bit lame with a theme park ride down the mountain, tons of shops and random animals like bears and camels, it was still gorgeous, and the weather couldn’t be better!

Ah Victory!