I was so happy with our Wall experience. Being in China during the New Year's weekend did pose small issues with things being closed including most tours and even just public transport to the Wall. Apple (our hostel hostess) was kind enough to set up a cab to take us to the wall, wait for 2 hours and return us to the hostel for a flat fee. We woke up nice and early on New Years Day to get out to the Mutianyu section of the wall and ended up being close to the only people up there. For a majority of the time we saw no one. Amazing. It's so much easier to appreciate the vastness of this man made marvel in silence. I had been so worried that going to the wall was going to be a horrible tourist attraction, but the section we went to was so beautiful. It only felt like a tourist trap for a brief moment as we were returning to the parking lot and we had to walk through the alley way of sidewalk vendors. Unfortunately, at this point we experienced what can only be described as retail rape. We were attacked and followed by multiple vendors as we walked by. They just didn't seem to understand that no means no.
All in all, though, very good time were had. So happy we did not do an organized tour. We had heard from someone in the hostel that she was given about 20 mins on the wall itself to take a picture before being loaded back on the bus. The trip the hostel organized did sound quite wonderful. It was a full day trip that included a 5 hour hike across the wall. Apparently they go into Mongolia for awhile. But at the time that is was presented to us we had just arrived and would have to wake up very early the next morning to do it. We just weren't ready to make that kind of commitment. I think it worked out for the best, because the things we did end up doing on Sunday morning and Monday afternoon were pretty much the highlight of the trip for me. If we had decided to hike to Mongolia those things never would have happened.
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