Joined a 1-day(8hr) group tour to the Great Wall
In Beijing, beside visiting “Forbidden City” which was done the day before, another “must visit” place was the Great Wall. We had considered various options to visit the Great Wall.
We flew into Beijing at “Beijing Capital International Airport”, this airport was midway between Beijing Central and Mutianyu Great Wall (a section of The Great Wall) which made it logical to go to the Great Wall directly from the airport once we touched down. After the Great Wall we could then go to Beijing central to visit the essential sights before returning to Beijing Capital International Airport to fly out.
We found that the only way to go to Mutianyu Great Wall from the airport was by cab. The distance was 51km and needed about 1 hr. Based Baidu Map, the estimated cab fare was ¥180. Taking a cab from the airport to the Great Wall had many uncertainties, like would a driver want to drive so far out of his area as it would be a one way trip. Similarly from Mutianyu Great Wall to Beijing Central we would need a cab ride as we had luggages. The distance was 75km for 1.5 hour and cab fare was about ¥280 and again we might be charged higher for a one way trip.
After much research and deliberation we opted for a 1-day (8 hours) Great-Wall tour starting from Beijing Central. We found several Great Wall trips on Trip.com and the prices were pretty reasonable. We found that MuBus on Trip.com was also available for booking directly through their website, https://www.beijingmubus.com/.
We placed our reservation directly with MuBus as payment could be made on site when we boarded the bus. The charges were for two ways transfer to the Great Wall, entrance fee (included internal shuttle bus ride) and lunch at MuBus restaurant on site were ¥200 per person. Cable car ride and ChairLift+Toboggan rides were not included. By not paying upfront during booking/reservation allowed to make cancellation easily without worrying about refund.
On “MUbus” BUS
We met our 1-day Great Wall tour guide at Subway【Dongzhimen Station】- Exit B1. The meeting point instructions were clearly written on their website. We could get there by bus or subway but we chose to get our “stay” receptionist to hail a cab since cab fare from our stay to Dongzhimen Station was only ¥21, which was cheaper than our subway ride back home!
We were at our meeting point early so we went into a MacDonald for a quick breakfast for ¥45.
After breakfast we were off to meet our tour guide. He was dressed in a red vest with the name MuBus printed and a red flag. Once all the “visitors” arrived we were guided to a big bus to start our journey to MuTianYu (慕田峪) Great Wall.
On the bus the guide spoke in English and gave out information on how to “walk” the great wall. There was two routes (East and West) to explore the Mutianyu Great Wall. To save some energy going up/down to the Great Wall we could ride the cable car up/down on the West route. As for the East route it would be by chairlift up and toboggan ride down.
On the bus we used Alipay to pay the guide. It was ¥200/person for 2-way transfer+ entrance fee + lunch. ¥140/person for two ways cable car ride to and fro the west route and ¥140/person for chairlift/tobaggan ride to and fro the east route.
Yes we decided to “conquer” both the east and west routes. We divided the payment into fives portions (¥200, ¥200, ¥200, ¥200 and ¥160) as any amount over ¥200 would incurr a 3% on the whole amount by Alipay.
Mutianyu Great Walll of China
We arrived at the entrance of the Mutianyu Great Wall after 1.5 hour bus ride. The bus ride was comfortable and cool, and the guide was pretty informative and entertaining so time passed pretty fast. At the entrance we alighted and the guide gave us tickets covering entrance, shuttle bus and cable car, chairlift + toboggan rides up and down the east and west route.
Once we entered into the entrance we saw a huge promenade with rows of tourist shops/restaurants at the sides. Our guide invited all of us to a MuBus restaurant to have some refreshment before proceeding to explore the great wall. For those that had opted for the buffet lunch proceeded to eat our lunch. The buffet spread was pretty good.
After lunch we were ready to explore the Great Wall. We had to take a shuttle bus for 3 kilometers to the base of Mutianyan Great Wall. The shuttle bus fee/ticket was included in the entrance ticket.
After a short bus ride we alighted at a bus terminal and then walked a distance upslope to the south entrance to the chairlift lower station. Wow, we had yet to see the great wall and we were already slightly exhausted. Lucky we were able to hop onto a chairlift and did not have to trek up to the great wall!
The chair lift ride saved us so much “leg-work”. The chair lift upper station was located at tower 6. The east route started from tower 6 to tower 1 which would need 2 hours of hiking (round trip). As for the west route the hike started from tower 14 (upper station of cable car) to tower 20 and a round trip would take 2 hours.
We could also hike on the great wall from tower 6 (upper chairlift station of east route) to tower 14 (upper cable car station of west route) which would be about 1.5 hour. We doubted we had the time or energy to hike to all the 20 towers but would visit as many as we could.
Mutianyu Great Wall was in pretty good shape, we supposed this stretch (tower 1 to tower20) was very well maintained. The walls curved up and down the contour of the ridge of the mountain. It looked like a long chinese dragon resting on the ridge of the mountain.
The center walkway was wide with battlements on both sides. At interval along the length of the wall were watch towers/stations. The weather was good with breeze in the air, this made walking up the steep steps at certain section very “doable”.
The Great Wall of China was a vast series of fortifications stretching over 22,200km. It was built to built to protect the China’s northern borders. It was the only man made structure visible from the Moon!
The Great Wall also known as Chángchéng (长城) or Wànlǐ Chángchéng (万里长城, “Ten-Thousand-Li Long Wall”). Today it was recognized as an UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World
Mutianyu Great Wall was connected the Jiankou Great Wall in the west and the Gubeikou Great Wall in the east. It was a strategic pass built during the Ming Dynasty. This section was initially constructed 1,400 years ago during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589), it was later repaired and expanded in the Ming Dynasty (1404).
We took more than 2 hours to do a round trip from tower 6 to tower 1 and back. We stopped to enjoy the view, stop to catch our breath and stop to take photos! We were back at tower 6 and decided that we did not have the energy to hike to tower 14 (the start of the west route) and then to tower 20 (the end of the west route). We rather go down by toboggan ride at tower 6 to the south entrance and go the the north entrance to take a cable car ride to tower 14.
Great decision! The toboggan ride was absolutely FUN!!
Toboggan Ride downAt the north entrance we went up by cable car to tower 14 of the Great Wall. There was no crowd and we got the entire cable car to ourselves. The cable car ride was very nice and we had a good view of the Great Wall as we approached the upper station.
From the upper station we walked to tower 14. The view was lovely. The west route was more majestic than the east route as the rise and fall of mountain ridge was steeper. We were too happy to just view it and had no wish to trek to tower 20.
Dinner at Haidilao
After we finished our “1 day tour (8 hours) Mutianyu Great Wall”, MuBus transferred us back to our original meeting point, Dongzhimen subway. The time was just about right for dinner. We looked around and spotted a familiar hotpot brand “Haidilao” just across the road so we were off to the hot pot restaurant for hotpot.
Though “Haidilao Hotpot” had many outlets/restaurants in Singapore but we had yet to visit one. The queue for a table was always incredible long outside the restaurants and we did not have the patience to wait.
Luckily for us, at Dongzhimen the Haidiliao had no queue so we went in for dinner.
It was a lovely and inexpensive meal for two. The meal costed ¥184.
Bus-sing Back to Stay
After dinner we had to”bus” back to our stay, “base Beijing Wanfujing Serviced Apartment “. A cab ride back would cost about ¥21 (that was the charge when we came this morning) which was very affordable.
This morning the receptionist at our stay helped us to e-hail the cab but now that we were out on the street we did not know how to e-hail a cab from our phone. We tried using BaiduMap app cab-hailing function but was unsuccessful as our payment system in Baidu Map App was not properly set up.
We had no other option but to return to our stay by bus. Mapping the route back to our stay using Baidu Map we were able to know the location of the bus stop, the bus number, the number of stops on the journey, the location to alight and the walking route back to our stay.
It was a short walk of 250 metre to the bus stop where we boarded bus 106 and alighted after 5 stops and then a short walk 300 metres to our stay. The walking after a heavy meal was good. The bus fare for seniors (us) was ¥1 per person. ¥1 was only 18 singapore cents… incredibly inexpensive! It was 10 times cheaper than the cab fare!
We still needed to get our Baidu Map e-hail function working, we planned to experiment with e-hail on DiDi apps and on wechat app. Hopefully one of them would work and then we would really be able to move around freely!