China: Up A Wall, Without A Paddle (cont.)

Really, I shouldn't have smoked the first one or the fifth one as I was about to climb a wall Mongols had trouble with. But, no matter the number of my refusals, his entreaties were not to be ignored.

"The Chinese may rule the world one day," I reckoned, "And it will be because no one can adequately tell them, 'No, thank you.'"

We finally arrived, and, eschewing the anti-climax of a chairlift, I began my trek in 90-degree heat up what I figure to be the world's first Stairmaster. What the Chinese lacked in movable parts those thousands of years ago, they more than made up for with steps that were steep and uneven. Some were 10 inches tall while others but an inch. Some were twice the length of your foot, and others barely half. And there was no rhyme or reason to when a set of one became a set of the other—nor when railings suddenly appeared or disappeared. You just had to keep your mind on the fact this Great Wall, several high-wires wide, lay on top of a great hill that just missed the cut-off for “mountain.”

Add to that heat, and, I kid you not, I could hear—hear!—my heart pounding through my shoulder. I would stop every so often and pretend I was admiring the view in order to prevent a coronary. However, that only signaled to the Chinese sherpas who patrolled there that I wished them to insinuate themselves as my guide and demand money. That precluded me from pausing too long because even a polite demurral was considered a verbal contract.

Now, that's a fairly common interaction between tourists and indigenous people in poor places all across the world. You will see that in China or in Mexico or Peru or Africa or anywhere a lot of poor people need to make a buck. And anywhere a white man lands with a camera and baggy shorts, the contract is unwritten, but understood and the same: you talk, you pay. And yet some of my fellow hikers obviously had trouble grasping the concept. One solipsistic twat, whom I must assume is accustomed to blank faces, took this as his own signal to stand for a spell and lament to one of the sherpas why he was studying such-and-such at graduate school and whether that was really what he wanted to do now and maybe how it was time for him to move to such-and-such city, but if he did that, would he be denying himself such-and-such opportunity further down the line? Such a devastating story of a mid-life crisis at 25 to be fair, but what made the matter worse was that in four weeks traveling through China he was the only American I ever saw.

The only surprise this Wonder of the World had to offer (other than the Great Wall beer stands, of course) were the make-shift latrines. In all the pictures and movies that first introduce young minds to the Great Wall of China, never do they mention the strong whiff of pee that wafts from the inside of each and every tower that rings the wall (I think usually because Simatai, with its lack of glossy remodeling, is not on the postcards). While certainly not as pungent as the smell of the public toilets in China, you still never figure on man’s greatest architectural feat being, essentially, the world’s largest outhouse.

I eventually made it to a spot where I knew I could rest, soaked up my surroundings, and then retraced the previous two hours of hiking. I could have gone a bit higher. A bit farther. But there was no need. And frankly it felt right. It was one of the few towers on which you could climb on top and scan an actual horizon—and my God what a view. It was spectacular to see the Wall snaking in either direction over mountains and out of sight and to see a physical record of Man’s effort as well as your own.

And so, I just sat and recorded my thoughts in a journal I kept for the duration of the trip:

"There are no problems in the world," I wrote, "nothing that can distract you from admiring the view, the climb, the struggle and just sheer audacity of climbing the Great Wall.

"It's funny watching the people below you climb up. You had to go up, too. You had to look around quite a lot because there was nothing else to do when your heart was about to give. 'I'm dying' [this is in quotes and was a comment overheard from an Englishman ascending, just below]. You were too."

"You genuinely love to see people struggle, then survive. I have to wait here to see the next person ascend to this space. I have to see their face."

I did. I soaked up more surroundings, then recorded my last thought:

"Now I've got to go back down the bloody thing."

The way up, as I said, was 100% cardio-vascular workout. The way down, however, was pure psychological terror. The steps, remember, were steep when they weren’t uneven, and now, heading in the direction and destiny of gravity, I realized they didn't lie exactly at right angles either. One wrong step and a person could snowball to greatness. But, to quote the great hip-hop combo Terror Squad, "Lean back." I did, and I survived.

By the time I reached the parking lot, the endorphins were firing full force, and I probably couldn't have felt a bull with steel boots kick me. I was swimming in good feelings and great emotions, and decided then and there to enjoy the trip and stop worrying so damn much about unimportant things like money. It was a revelation very similar to one I had days earlier when I finally decided to eat street food and no longer worry about those hepatitis and tetanus vaccinations that had just (whoops!) slipped my mind.

"To hell with that warm swill I've been lugging around all day," I concluded and purchased my driver and me some cold bottles of tourist-priced water.

For the entirety of the return trip, I just sat there, ignoring my driver's margin-defying, nook-and-cranny style while relishing my own. More importantly, however, I decided that I could do everyone a favor and just be a gracious guest for a change, which is all that was ever asked of me.

“Yes,” I said. “I will have one of those cigarettes.”

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