Monday, December 11, 2006

Chapter Six: The Great Wall, Mutianyu

Welcome to Part 3 of Manny's China Palooza: The Great Wall, Mutianyu

Standing on the granite wall, built during the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368-1644).

This section of the wall is less comercial than the highly touristic section at Badaling, and is famous for the multitude of Ming Dynasty guard towers along its length.

Manny sits in the window of one of the guard towers, admiring the view.

Posing in one of the archers' defense holes

Manny gazes at the steep wall of steps at the end of this section, trying to decide if he has the energy to ascend the near vertical stairs. (You can see the steps starting from near his right ear, heading towards the horizon)

Half-way up the steps. Near enough is not close enough for this intrepid adventurer.

Resting proudly at the platform at the top of the stairs! This is the last Guard Tower before the Wall disintigrates into ruins. Not many people realise that only relatively small parts of the wall have been preserved/restored, and the majority exists as ruins.

Gazing back to where we came from... and where our tired souls (and our tired soles!) have to walk back to.

Until next time...

xxx Manny

2 comments:

e said...

Hello Manny
We came over from Carbi and Aramis's site.
Happy Xmas over there in China

Love
Fei & E

Louise said...

Hi Fei and E,

Thanks for visiting and I hope you like my blog. It's a bit hard for my stuffed toy hands to type, so I usually only have photos here. Hope you enjoy looking!

Merry Christmas!

Manny