I actually have very few useable photos because of my camera's death and the number of times my film canisters were X-rayed. Which made the following compilation come together very quickly. To the right is my favourite shot and probably the biggest highlight of the trip - hiking the Great Wall at Simatai.
Our guides were invariable surprised that we went to the Great wall twice in Beijing. But they were very different experiences. Compared Badaling, Simatai is a little more remote (about three hours from Beijing versus 1.5 hours) and allows for more climbing. Simatai was restored during the Ming Dynasty and is more rustic than Badaling that has been more recently and heavily restored. There's no climbing the Han Dynasty wall near Dunhuang at the Western-most section of the Great Wall. It's made of straw and clay. This section is about the height of tall person.
| The Great Wall | ||
 |  |  |
| The Great Wall near Dunhuang Han Dynasty | Simatai. The Great Wall near Beijing Ming Dynasty | Badaling. The Great Wall near Beijing Ming Dynasty |
| The Forbidden City | ||
 |  |  |
| The Other Four shots that actually developed properly | |
 |  |
| The Seventeen-Arch Bridge on Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing | Jiaohe ruins. There were at one time Buddhas in each of the cubby holes. Jiaohe was a stop on the Silk Road until it was abandonned during Mongol invasions. |
 |  |
| One of our stops on the Silk Road. This is the view from our hotel in Dunhuang | Yang, our favourite guide |
3 comments:
Nice pictures, too bad more did not turn out. Was the great wall always foggy during the time you were there?
Gandalf: Thanks.
It was definitely not foggy near Dunhuang, which is in the desert. That's just the degraded colour quality from the Xrays. It was foggy near Simatai, where we got soaked in a downpour. And it was hot and hazy, not foggy, at Badaling.
Did you say "film canisters"?
It may be because I never owned one, but I think I'd kind of assumed that film cameras had gone obsolete.
I highly, highly recommend going digital. Great quality, you can take hundreds of photos without reloading, and best of all, impervious to x-rays. :)
Post a Comment