Many of us wanted to visit the Great Wall in its more natural, unrestored form. Si Ma Tai is said to be one of the more dangerous parts of the Great Wall. We took a 3 hour bus ride just to get there. We slept at this really cheap, ghetto bed and breakfast type place (can't beat 20 yuan a night, though). We got up around 6 the next morning and started climbing the Wall.
Once we climbed up the mountain, we had to
choose whether to go left or right. The right part goes to a dead end and the
left part continues into the neighboring city, about 10 km away. We wanted to
see both sides so we started with the right, then backtracked, then went left.
The picture above is of the left side of the Si Ma Tai.
Jenny, Gautam, and De taking a popsicle
break on the wall.
Jenny and me posing on one of the towers.
All together, we climbed around 50 towers that day! The whole journey on Si Ma
Tai took us about 8 hours to complete.