Great walks of China

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-06-24 16:32

From towering mountains and meandering rivers, to city walls and pretty villages, all you need to enjoy China’s breathtaking landscape is a backpack and the road ahead,says our team of LifeTravel writers.

Hitting a Wall

Mao Zedong famously said: “He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man!”

He forgot to follow up with “… and one with very sore legs!”

Few people realize how arduous it can be to slug up the Wall — until they do it, that is.

The steps are steep in most places and in some stretches they aren’t even there any more.

In such locations, where the steps have been crushed under the weight of centuries, stone nuggets cascade down the mountainside. This forces “walkers” to become “climbers”, as they must use their hands as well as their feet to scuttle up the heaped crumbs of stone.

The Great Wall is actually a network of separate bulwarks. Some have been built up and restored, others are remote and decrepit; some are made of brick, many older sections were created with packed earth and straw.

So the Great Wall isn’t a “great walk ofChina” but rather, “many great walks inChina”.

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