How Wild is Wild

How Wild is Wild

If you want a tour you’ll never forget, William Lindesay is who you want to contact. He won’t embarrass you by walking around with a neon flag, but will constantly keep you interested and eager to carry on with his adventurous looks and sweet British accent. However, William isn’t for the faint hearted and his tour is called Wild Wall for a reason. Tourists who like doing non-tourist things, make sure you hit William up when you decide to take a trip to the Great Wall. It’s such a different experience from what people normally see when they visit the wall.

The Ming wall seems like it goes on forever.

The Biggest difference was the condition the wall was in. Unlike the government sponsored section of the Ming wall, our Ming wall was falling apart. The footpath on top of the wall was littered with bricks and resembled a backyard more than a wall. Instead of hearing on your left is the gift shop, I was hearing on your left and right is a shear thirty foot drop down a mountainside.

tight squeeze

So overgrown it blends in with the crumbling cliff

Going through the guard towers was a whole experience by itself. The guard towers tourists normally see are all fixed up and battle ready. If you want to go to the top, just walk up the cemented in stone stairs. Our guard towers weren’t like that. Most of the towers I went into had huge holes in the floor, walls and roof. The last tower we went into was so bad, our guide told us to hurry through it, in fear of it collapsing upon us. I have to admit, I was kind of afraid of being caved in at first.

Will pointing towards a guard tower

It was wild till the very end. When we got back from our four mile hike, everyone in our group was tired, sore, hungry and very dirty. Apparently, William knew this was going to be the outcome, so he came prepared by having for us ready to eat hot dumplings and cold drinks the moment we got back to base camp. Instead of the usual tourist packed restaurant, we were sitting in an authentic Chinese farm house, eating handmade fresh dumplings.

Wills Farmhouse