Badaling Great Wall and Longqingxia Ravine

One day trip to Badaling and Longqingxia 
Friday, 10 August 2007

Badaling

Lóngqìngxía

These 2 places are located not very far from Beijing and can be visited within 1 day. Badaling is surely already well known as the most visited part of the Great Wall of China. Longqingxia ravine is also quite popular among the local chinese tourist and is known as "the little Guilin". We rented 2 cars for 12 people and they cost total 1000RMB including the drivers. We left Beijing at 7 in the morning, otherwise we would be trap in the traffic jam.

Badaling - Great Wall

We went up to the great wall by taking the cable car (60RMB return) instead of walked up directly from the parking area. Badaling is the most popular and most visited site, because there you can see how the great wall goes up and down the mountain like a long curve. And therefore it was also very crowded on that day. There are several bottle neck places, where you really have to queue. Nice thing to notice in the great wall are the amount of seller offerring souvenirs, pictures and certificates. For 15 or 20 RMB you can get a certificate with a picture of you on it, which certify that you were in Great Wall already.

Longqingxia Ravine

Longqingxia is located about 1-2 hours by car from Badaling. The main attraction there is going with the boat in the ravine, but there are also several other things you can do, such as walking in the water, cart riding or bungee jumping. For the bungee jumping, you need to pay only 150 RMB. 2 of my friends, who did that however told me that the safety measures are not very satisfying. Well, you can also go deeper between the rocks with a rowing boat, or go further up using cable car, but those things I didn't do because I need to catch the night train to Shanghai.