Great Wall Part 2

I looked down from this vantage and saw the ridiculous sections of wall of which I'd read. The wall dropped straight down hundreds of feet, only to pop up again and reach for the sky.  It dipped up and down until it wound out of sight.  Though the vies could have kept us stationed for hours, staring off across the misty mountains in either silent awe or exaggerated wows, we had to go in the other direction to rejoin the rest of the group.

Thankfully, the other direction proved no less spectacular.  The wall climbed up to the highest peak in site to bring view of dramatic yellow peaks sinking into the thick forest below.  IT seemed a little unnecessary to build a wall atop suck jagged mountains that rise straight out of the ground, but I suppose the Mongolian invaded China anyway, wall or no wall, through the sweat pouring humidity.  It speaks of their hardiness.  This is as amazing as the Chinese who managed to haul bricks to a place so high.

The rustic Jiankou section, after plunging straight down for a couple hundred hair raising meters (I even had to crab walk down parts for stability), eased into the next section, Mutianyou.  This section was a bit restored to capture more of its former grandeur.  It was less authentic, but no less incredible.  As the wall was less crumbled and had more stairs for the steep parts, the tourist and vendors were much more prevalent.  This section was quick and easy and needed ladder for only a few parts.

After a couple of kilometers, we reached the cable car down.  We gladly paid for the ride to the bottom after such a strenuous hike. The last stretch back to the car park was a gauntlet of souvenirs

"T-shirt one dollar! No? Two t-shirt one dollar"

The peddlers tossed themselves in front of us with cheap T-shirts boasting the climbing of the great wall.

I started mumbling "bu yung" incessantly to no avail. I finally made it to the bottom with only seven t-shirts, a giant panda backpack, three books of post cards, and unidentified fruit pop-sickle, and a had with a picture of Che Guevara on it. Or not

Finally we were through the gates (but not through the hawkers). This is when we collectively made the realization: where were we supposed to present these tickets for which we gave the driver money? How was the driver going to give us the tickets if we needed them to exit or enter? Nobody asked for tickets, and in a place like China, where they squeeze every yuan they can out of you, if a ticket was needed, they would have collected it. Something was definitely wrong here. We searched frantically for our driver at the bottom, unsure if he took off with our money, or would be waiting to take more. We weren't too worried: he didn't seem like the type that would run from a chance to make more money. As expected, there he was smiling and waving. He pointed to the mountains and gave a questioning thumbs up and toothy smile. I gave a thumbs up back and bared my teeth.

Mauricio wasted no time tearing into the man about the tickets. After some arguing, they both walked in separate directions, the man up the hill and Mauricio down to where were waiting near the van.

"He said he bought the tickets, but his wife threw them away."

"Why would she throw them away?" I asked.

"She threw them away because they made no sense!" yelled Julian the German.

Nobody could argue with that.

"Where did he go?" I asked.

"He went to get some tickets."

"We have already left the park!" said Julian.

"How does his brain go there?" I asked. "I mean does he really think we are that stupid?"

We all thought for a minute and realized yes, he probably did think we were that stupid. We did give him the money for the ticket that never really did make much sense.

Sitting around waiting, we weighed our options. We thought of playing hard ball, taking the ride home, but only giving him the 540 yuan difference, treating the ticket money as a deposit. We just didn't want to get arrested. There was the option of ditching the driver and hiring another, but it would have cost more. His poor wife sat impatiently, knowing we weren't being fooled; we suspected she might speak English. We had already been waiting for 30 minutes; could we turn the wife against the husband?

Mauricio approached her, presenting our deal. We'd pay a total of 95 yuan each, five more per person than the original agreement. Seeing that she would come out on top, she agreed. She picket up the phone and started talking, the talking led to yelling, until she hung up the phone in anger. "He's coming back now," she explained to Mauricio. Then there he was, fuming, tickets in his hand. He gave them to Mauricio. Mila took the tickets and after some Sherlock Holmes action observed, "These tickets are bent and used. The serial numbers aren't in sequence and he's missing two tickets."

Mauricio tore into him again about his outrageous ruse. Finally, the two of them took off towards the ticket office, which was closed, to validate their authenticity. A few minutes later, they returned.

"These Chinese, they stick together. There was a man at the office still and he says he sold him the tickets earlier today. We'll have to pay him the full amount to get home." We grumbled and moaned until we realized we'd been swindled for only $4 each.