Looking for a Great Wall experience that doesn't include the tourist hordes? The Sa Ma Tai region of the wall may be the place for you.
Located about a two-and-a-half hour bus ride outside of Beijing, the hiking is challenging enough to thin the ranks of tourists down a bit, though you'll still find persistent vendors posted in each tower, hawking T-shirts and overpriced water bottles, which you just may end up needing. The wall in this area isn't exactly stroller-friendly, and while you don't quite need to be a lean, mean, fighting machine to make the hike, you'll want to think long and hard if you can't see yourself scaling rubble-strewn, gecko-infested, near-vertical staircases that re-acquaint you with each and every one of those thigh muscles you hadn't spoken with in such a long time. You'll also find yourself making the occasional leap from a tower down onto the wall, or the scramble up, since the wall and the towers aren't exactly peanut butter and jelly in this area, the result of being constructed in different eras.

The hike took me a bit more than an hour to complete when I made the journey with classmates last month; some of the slower members of my group members needed three hours to finish up. After crossing a suspension bridge, we arrived at an intersection of the wall and a dirt road, which we followed a little ways to a small village of about 100 people, where we spent the night in modest guest rooms (I won't spoil the surprise for you by defining "modest," but I'll give you a two-word hint about the lavatory facilities: open roofed). We were up at 3:30 a.m. and scaled the highest peak on the wall to watch the sunrise, another physically challenging experience that proved well worth the effort. 

Luckily, our bus driver had driven round closer to the village so we didn't have to make the long hike back to get home. And, there was a zip line and boat ride available to the parking lot for 30 RMB; thrill seekers might as well refrain, however, as the zip line's speed ranks somewhere between the pace of rush hour traffic downtown and the haste with which Beijing residents are embracing the concept of queuing up, in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games.

In any case, it's a fun trip, and after a few hours of pain, you'll be able to tell your friends you conquered Sa Ma Tai?-and got back in touch with your long-lost thigh muscles.

Author:Matt Doran

About the author:

Matt Doran is an award-winning American newspaper journalist and an undergraduate student at Albion College. He is currently a polisher for China Daily Website and is on summer break from Beijing Foreign Studies University, where he will resume his study of Chinese in the fall.