Sep 13: The Great Wall

When I was 13, I traveled to Europe for the first time with Dad, Amber, and my grandmother. We rented a car and drove over the Alps from Austria to Italy -- and I read a book sitting in the back seat. Amber kept telling me to look up, I would for a moment, and then would go back to reading. I remember the book clearly, Jacob Have I Loved, about a neglected older sister in a Chesapeake Bay crabbing family.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly and this has pretty much described my traveling style ever since. There's really nothing I like better than sitting in a gorgeous venue, while reading a book about something completely different. Bonus if there's a person sitting next to me. Today's choice: planting myself down on the Great Wall while reading Nabokov's A Pale Fire.

As it was, we lucked out--our wall experience was enhanced for a number of reasons. First of all, the MF crowd in Xi'an had suggested going to Mutianyu instead of the more-famous Badaling. Badaling is known for crowds more often associated with the front ten feet at a rock concert. . . so I figured anything would be better than that. As it was, after the two-hour drive from Beijing we found a wall that was pretty much . . . empty.

Better yet, it was slightly overcast and gently drizzling. This was bad news in that it meant the giant one-mile-long slide down the side of the wall we'd been looking forward to was closed -- but good news in all other respects. We'd been prepared for raging heat, and it was cool. We'd been prepared for smog so thick you couldn't see down into the valley--there was none. In fact, you could see stretches of the wall extending for miles and miles, winding through the mountains. We overheard a Chinese guide say she had never in her life seen so much of the wall.

Eleni hiked the full expanse allowed, glowing and happy. I did about half, and then settled down in a rampart with my Nabakov. Nothing like the tale of a paranoid, self-absorbed Russian prince to really enhance the Great Wall of China.

Perfect.