Posted 8:11 PM by Floyd

On the second day of our tour, in Beijing, Sherry and I went to the Great Wall at Ba Da Ling. Like the tombs in Xian, the Great Wall has a lot of tourist gimmicry. There are lots of souvenir shops in the parking area and on the wall, and vendors selling snacks and beverages (including hot coffee).

Two tourist attractions I found quite interesting. One was kind of a luge that ran down from a high point of the wall to the parking lot, a distance of maybe 40 feet vertically and 200 feet horizontally. But the luge had a little roof on top that blocked the view, and crept down the track very slowly. So we forwent that pleasure.

On the other side of the wall was a man, his wife, and their camel. I could not resist. I donned some sort of barbarian costume and sat atop the camel for a picture; then the picture was laminated onto a certificate. The camel was amazingly ugly and irritable, and it emitted sounds exactly like Chewbacca the Wookie! I was terrified that it would spit at me, so I kept my face averted when I passed in front of it.



I was trying to look fierce when the photo was taken. Unfortunately I seem to be either confused, or constipated.