China, 2016
“Wake up, wake up,” Dani said, her voice drifting into my restless sleep. Then someone bumped my shoulder and I lurched awake. The bus, which had been quiet for hours, now surged as people pushed toward the front windows.
I rubbed my eyes against the sun and looked out my window.
The wall ran along the ridges—rising, dropping, turning as it followed the mountains into a blue distance that softened its edges. The towers stood at even intervals along its lengths, sharpening as we drew closer and lifting above us.
“Badaling,” Dani said, stepping off the bus and peering up. “The Great Wall.”
From where we stood, the walls extended to both the north and the south of us, with a single ticket gate at the center giving us a choice of which direction we wished to go.
“Let’s go north first,” she said, so we picked that direction and began our climb.
~
From Tower One to Two to Three, the grade steepened, rising in sets of stairs that broke our climb in uneven bursts.
Dani slowed, her knee which had been bothering her yesterday, clearly hurting now. Sweat dripped down her face despite the brisk air.
“I need a break” she said, stopping for water and a snack in the shade of a watch tower.
“Of course,” I said. “I need a break too.” I didn’t, but that wasn’t the point. This was our honeymoon, and I was happy to move at the speed of us.
I sat too. She shared a steamed bun with me, and when we began moving again, we went slower.
To my sides: mountains and walls twisted, split, and rejoined, rising and falling with the rolling hills into the atmospheric distance of infinity.
Ahead of me: the wall. It looked renovated here, more so than I’d expected—massive elevated walkways with crenellations, watch towers, and stairs. Its stones stood upright and intact, although names and dates were scratched into nearly every stone.
Nearby, stone carvers crouched over flagstone, chiseling out landscapes by hammer and memory. They displayed their finished art by propping them against the wall. From a distance, it blended in. I rubbed my fingers across their surfaces, adding texture and humanity to the wall’s impossible scale.
As the towers increased, the sparse crowds became thicker, slowly at first then all at once until the entire wall became a mass of human congestion. Speakers along the wall broke through the noise.
“No loitering. No climbing. Keep moving.” They barked continuously. The message from one speaker beginning before the last one finished.
Then at the top, at Tower Eight, stood a sign: “He who has never stood atop the Great Wall isn’t a true man.”
A tourist neared it, raised his arms in triumph while a friend snapped his photo, then disappeared into the crowed. Another man replaced him, same pose, same photo, and then another. Behind them, crowds poured from a cable-car forming a shortcut from the parking lot to the highest part of the wall. Next to the sign, a bobsled-type roller coaster brought the crowds back to the buses. One shortcut shone silver in the sun while the other yellow. Noise, motion, and color competing with the motionless stone.
We ignored it all, and as we moved past the sign, the cable-car, the speakers, and the crowds disappeared. The wall continued, but for the first time, we found quiet. The next four towers rose steeper yet, but this gave me a chance to slow down, to reach out, and help my new wife. In return for our efforts, we were granted breathtaking towers and solitude.
Just like I had imagined: Dani, me, and the Great Wall of China—our honeymoon, alone and always together.
~
On the way out, security guards stopped me and asked to see our tickets. We both rummaged through our pockets, but we couldn’t find them.
“Can we show you our photos instead?” Dani asked, nudging me to get my camera ready.
The guard accepted her offer. Then scrolled, paused, paused at a photo of a man raising his arms, and looked up.
“These are good,” he said and handed it back.