Journey to the Great Wall and the battle of the trolls

Sorry it's been a few weeks since I posted.  I went to China, so today I'm going to write a little about that trip. I should say in advance, though, that this story is not indicative of my time in China. I spent most of the time in Beijing, and fell in love with that city. The people were incredibly kind, the food was amazing, and I loved riding a bike everywhere I went.

But this is a story from our one-day excursion away from Beijing. This is the day we went to the Great Wall.

From the beginning, I was filled with foreboding. First of all, I knew that Seth and Jordan were going to be late. And they were. By about two hours. Secondly, I myself was hung over. We'd gone out for Peking duck the night before, and the wine hit me like a ton of bricks. I was nervous about the taxi ride, but somehow managed to pull it together. Then I discovered we were taking a bus.

I had to trust that Jordan, who had been staying up all night every night drinking until dawn with Seth all week long, would be able to get us to the right place. Normally, I trust Jordan. But I think his judgment might have been impaired by this point.

We navigated buying a ticket and got on a bus, which I was praying was the right bus but since all the characters were Chinese and there was no hope of me reading our destination. We rode into the countryside on a highway. My fear increased when at what appeared to be a random stop, a woman on the side of the road beckoned for us to get off the bus. Then a man boarded the bus and tried to coax us off. The bus was packed full, and we four white people were the only ones being coaxed off the bus. My inner voice screamed, "Don't do this! It's stupid!" Jordan looked confused, but stood and started to get off the bus. Seth followed him. Jacob and I looked at each other. What was going on?

Next thing I knew we were off the bus and standing on the side of a dusty road and Jordan had entered negotiations, presumably for this man with a car to take us to the Great Wall. Their voices got louder, it sounded as if they were arguing, although it almost always sounds to me as if people are arguing in Chinese. I nervously watched our bus drive away while a hung-over Jordan continued negotiations without any apparent hope for reaching a deal.

Then, miraculously, we got in the car and were off towards the Great Wall.

One of the expats we met in Beijing describes Chinese drivers like this: they drive cars like they ride bikes. There's not a high regard for staying in one lane. Our movement was less linear and more fluid as we wove between the lanes haphazardly passing on blind curves, competing for space with other cars, trucks, rickshaws and bicycles through little village streets. Seth kept saying, "This guy's a good driver" while I looked up and winced.

The only thing that keeps driving in China from being a total disaster is that everyone goes so slowly. The random weaving along ribbons of road becomes a sort of dance, with horns honking like castanets.

An hour later our driver pulls over on the side of the road at someone's house, but with tables out front. We look up at the nearby hills and get our first view of the Great Wall crawling along the ridge line.

We get out of the car and the man speaks with two women, one of whom is holding a chubby little baby. Seth buys a beer from one of the women. The driver speaks to Jordan about the hike, showing him a map and discussing the return trip. The man wants 80 RNB for having driven us there, but Jordan thought he had agreed on 25 RNB. A fight ensues. We're in sight of the Great Wall and the Chinese driver is yelling at Jordan, who is still hung over and tired looking, but refusing to pay the man 80 RNB. Jordan smiles, puts his arm around the driver's back and assures him it's okay. He tries to take out 25 yuan but the man won't take it. Jordan leaves the money on the table, walks across the street where there are more tables set up in front of a dilapitated building. He asks to look at the menu and orders lunch (he and Seth haven't eaten anything yet, and it's after 2pm).

Seth, meanwhile, stays across the street with his beer, the two women, and the baby. He picks up the money Jordan left on the table. Jordan and the driver are at the table (where Jacob and I have also sat down). They are having a standoff, and neither is backing down. Jordan says, "I don't really know how to resolve this." I ask him if this could be an honest mistake. The driver says he's charging 20 RNB per person, but Jordan swears it was 25 for all of us. Seth comes back over and says, "I think he's telling the truth." He gestures at the woman with the baby across the street and says,  "She says it costs 10  RNB to take the bus, so 20 isn't bad for a car." 

So it is finally agreed to give the man 80 RNB, though Jordan is not pleased. The driver smiles, pats Seth on the back and announces, "You good. Here (he touches Seth's forehead) and here (he touches Seth's chest, where his heart is). You (he gestures to Jordan), No." He makes a disgusted face.

The food arrives. We eat delicious fried eggplant, chewy fried peanuts, greens sauteed with eggs, and rice. The driver offers Seth a cigarette and makes a big deal of Seth taking it, refusing to accept one of Seth's in return. Finally we agree that the same driver will take us back to meet the bus when we're done with the hike. We all get back in the car and drive the final stretch of road to the Great Wall.

At the wall there is a small army of women selling trinkets. They swarm us, Seth takes off running past them, and they laugh as he runs away, aware that it is their job to pester us. We cross over a dam (there is a river that runs through parallel to the road there), pass a man who insists we must pay him 2 yuan a person to pass. After a moment's hesitation, during which Seth has again run ahead laughing, we decide to pay him. I doubt he was official.

We climb to the top of the wall and feel appropriate awe at how it winds over the mountain crest. It is a beautiful sight and beyond where we are - which has clearly been renovated and maintained - we can see crumbling bits of the wall with grass and trees growing from the stone as the earth slowly reclaims the ridgeline.

The stretches of the wall are separated by towers and at the second tower there is an old woman apparently selling water and snacks. Seth again runs past, but she stops the rest of us and demands that we pay 2 yuan a person again. This time there is no doubt that the woman is not there in any official capacity whatsoever. She's the equivalent of a panhandler, only more aggressive. Jacob and I try to go around and climb through a little window of the tower, but she comes around and grabs me. Suddenly, I am very aware that we are standing on a steeply sloping ancient wall towering over mountains. Jacob grabs her and she looks similarly suddenly aware that this could get very ugly and painful. She releases me and lets out a banshee cry that rings over the walls and mountains.

We continue on our way.

Now the plan of the hike is to trek along the wall, eventually finding a path that departs from the wall and carries us around the hill back to the house where we originally stopped and fought with our driver, who is supposed to be there waiting for us. It is 3pm. The driver told us the last bus leaves for Beijing at 6pm, and it will take an hour to get back to that bus. I can't help but envision what can go wrong: we fail to find the road back to the house and have to backtrack passing the evil troll woman again; we get to the house and the driver is no longer there; or the driver is there, but we miss our bus to Beijing. Rational or not, my feeling that something bad is going to happen just increases as we hike.

But we find the road that departs from the wall right where it should be. We leave the wall and see three donkeys tied up on the side of the road. When the first donkey sees us, it brays loudly. It is a heartbreaking bray that could only be described as a call for help, and the boys all look at me and I know they hear it the same way I do.

Something is wrong.

We walk up to it and see that the ridiculously short tether has gotten wrapped around one leg, painfully crippling the animal. It has unsucessfully attempted to gnaw through the rope. After some finagling, I manage to work it's leg free, and then I try to readjust its harness, which is twisted on its face. I pull the metal bit up and almost gag to see it had dug deep into the bridge of its nose and now there is a huge gaping strip of raw flesh exposed. The donkey, which had remained perfectly calm while I released its leg, looks at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen.

Jacob takes my arm and says, "You can't take it home, Aeron." We walk on down the road passing mangy dogs on short leashes. Some bark menacingly, while others just watch us. There are piles and piles of shit in their immediate areas and it is clear that none of these animals are ever released from their tethers. There is a large gate preventing us from going further.

Just when I wonder what we're going to do, a man comes out. He is the king of the trolls, an ugly, mean-looking, wrinkly Chinese man. He tells us it's 10 yuan per person to pass. This time Seth doesn't attempt to run. Jordan doesn't haggle. We pay the man, and knowing it is hopeless, I try to tell him about the hurt donkey, but he clearly doesn't care. So we walk on and I spend the final stretch of the hike through rolling orchards trying not to cry.