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A visit to one part of the Great Wall of China

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During my time working in Beijing, I went to see and walked on the Great Wall many times, and was fortunate to travel to many different parts including Badaling, Huanghua, Laolongtou, Mutianyu, Xing Long Xia, Jinshanling (which this post relates to), Jiayu Pass and Simatai.  Some of these are more commercial than others and some are parts of the wall that are not in the original state.

The initial section of Jinshanling  has been restored to original condition, but the condition of the wall deteriorates towards its natural state as it approaches Simatai.  I took two different visitors to this part of the wall and both could not believe how amazing it was, firstly to only have about twenty other people on the wall (including one young Chinese girl in very high heels) and loved seeing the un-restored part of the wall.

Refurbished:

Original state:

This particular part of the Great Wall is located on the Jinshanling Mountains in Chengde, Hebei Province which is about 130 kilometres northeast of Beijing. This section of the wall is connected with the Simatai section to the east and the Mutianyu section to the west.

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This part of the Wall was constructed during the Ming Dynasty and has a total length of 10.5 kilometres and is 700 metres above sea level.

I really loved this part of the wall.  It was fun to take the cable car to the top of the mountain and then walk along the wall (some parts a bit scary as the wall did not have any sides), but to reach the un-restored part and know that it was built so many (many) years ago was amazing.