The Great 8,851.8km of still loneliness.

I don't imagine going to China and not seeing this wonder of the world- The Great Wall. And a wonder it is indeed. The first parts of the Wall were built in the years of the 5th century BC.  The dragon-like construction stretches all over the Northern and North-Eastern parts of China, and exactly like a dragon, it's fearless in the face of wind, sun and most of all- time.

In the village Huanghuacheng, 65 km away from Beijing, lays a part of the wall built in the Ming Dynasty with its own legend. Cai Kai was the general responsible for building that part of the wall, but it took a much longer time than the Emperor ordered to, therefore Cai Kai was beheaded. But after the construction was checked it was discovered that it was strongly fortified. The Emperor felt bad and ordered to have 2 characters carved in the wall- "jin tang" - which means firm and strong. 

To get to the wall we had to pay 2 RMB(30 USD cents) to an old lady, whose garden we were going through.  The old lady was very nice and she chatted with us for a while, telling that per day under 100 tourists come to see the Wall. And once, there was a day when a total of 300 tourists came through her gate, bringing a modest income of 100 USD, which is half of the monthly average salary of a Chinese factory worker.

We walked on the wall and, to be sincere, a strong feeling of sadness and loneliness overwhelmed me. The Wall is Great without a doubt, but more than that it is lonely. Just imagining how many people's footsteps it had known and how many of these people's footsteps left the Earth... I admire the Wall, the courage and dedication of the people that built it,but at the same time I hate it for reminding the humanity how ephemeral and how insignificant is a human-being's life. I left the village with a strong desire to come back and spend more time with the Wall. After all it has so many stories to share, so much wisdom to teach and so much time to spare...

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