Best Great Wall To Visit – Mutianyu Great Wall

As Chairman Mao once said, “If you don’t get to the Great Wall you’re not a good man.” (不到长城非好汉). So if you ever come to Beijing without visiting the Great Wall, you can’t call yourself a good man… literally.

Mutianyu Great Wall (慕田峪长城) is 1½ hour away from Beijing City by car and less crowded compared to the Badaling Great Wall which is nearer and easier to get to. We hired a car for a day to take us to the Mutianyu Great Wall which opens daily from 7:30am–5:30pm. I’m quite familiar with this place as I’d came here twice before when I was living in China 7 years ago. However, this place had transformed so much since I last came here in 2009 where they had a huge exhibition centre, a huge commercial village with shops and restaurants. The entrance ticket was RMB45 per pax, but we had to add return shuttle bus ticket for RMB15 per pax (we used to be able to walk up to the chairlift station straight away) and return chairlift/toboggan ride for RMB100 per pax. Hence, all in cost per person was RMB160 which was much more expensive that my last trip which cost RMB96. Can’t complain about China’s inflation, can we?

Anyway, it was a warm winter when we were there and the sky was slightly smoggy with on brown bald trees in sight. We had some snow on the Great Wall and that was the only bit of snow that I last saw during that trip. The view was bare as compared to the beautiful summer/autumn views, or even the great winter view that covered with deep white snow. Guess I wasn’t that lucky with snow that time around. Anyway, for summer pictures of Mutianyu Great Wall, please check out my old post (click here). As usual, the highlight of the trip was the toboggan ride down which one could get some fast and furious actions by speeding the toboggan. Big Teddy definitely had his fair share of fun sliding down the toboggan slides in full speed. He even complained that I was too slow and took a video of me slowly gliding in… Well, boys will be boys aren’t they?

Ticket Centre that was newly built (Wasn’t there when I last came in 2009)

Some quick facts about Mutianyu Great Wall:

• The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall is a masterpiece of restoration, with 23 original-style watchtowers fully restored in 1986.
• Mutianyu is the longest fully-restored Great Wall section open to tourists.
• It is 2½ km (1½ miles) long.
• The Mutianyu Great Wall was first built by the Northern Qi Dynasty in (550–577) over 1,400 years ago. Today’s wall is a replica of the fortifications of 1568 in the Ming Dynasty.

Chairlift to go up and Toboggan to come down

Little bit of snow

The watchtowers

Toboggan Ride down the Great Wall

Toboggan Ride down the Great Wall

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