Great Wall is an Olympic feat all its own

BEIJING - My first thought as I reached the top of the Great Wall of China was that if the Chinese can build this 50-foot stone wall atop a sheer mountain without the aid of helicopters, then every other country in the world better hope they never become intent on world domination or else we'll all be eating Beijing duck about five minutes after the last world war begins.

I'm not much for tourist attractions. Buildings are buildings, museums are static, history and its relics are the stuff of future dust balls. Even the famed Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum offers little more than old leather and wood.

When you spend three weeks in China, though, and you find yourself with a day in which you can either visit one of the seven wonders of the world or watch badminton, you call a cab.

Star Tribune photographer Carlos Gonzalez and I arranged a car from our media village and took a ride of a little more than an hour, giving us a much better perspective on our host country than we had gotten riding buses between sporting venues.

Beijing is immense, as well as smoggy, and it's growing by the minute. There is new construction everywhere you look, and the sprouting high-rises, along with the millions of trees and plants planted to dress up Beijing for the world's stage, lend the impression that this city might not have existed before July, that the whole place could be taken down like a Hollywood set after the Closing Ceremony.

While the heat and smog proved oppressive the first week of the Games, a couple of hard rains have cleared the skies a bit and lowered the temperatures, and we had a pleasant ride through the outskirts of the city, then through the lush rural landscape filled with farms and resorts and finally to the Wall, built about 2,500 years ago. Apparently Chinese peasants did not belong to a union.

Instead of visiting the closer but more touristy section at Ba Da Ling, which features its own KFC, we chose Mutianyu. As Frommer's said, "You might not be able to see Ba Da Ling from space, but there's some chance of smelling the toilets."

Cabs here are also remarkably cheap. Our trip cost 700 yuan, or less than $120 for him to drive us both ways and wait a couple of hours while we climbed the world's most scenic Stairmaster.

Once you get up there, you have to wonder if the Wall wasn't a bit redundant. To approach the wall, the Mongol hordes would have had to scale numerous sheer mountains. If they could have navigated to the Wall, they should have been expected to find a way over the Wall.

As Carlos said, "Why doesn't anybody ever figure out that if you build a 50-foot wall, someone's just going to build a 51-foot ladder?"

Carlos should be a writer. He would not have made much of a defense contractor.

From the top of the Wall, it's hard to imagine how any enemy force could have scaled it, avoiding arrows and winning hand-to-hand combat with defenders occupying the high ground.

We were soaked with sweat just after climbing from the parking lot to the base of one of the cable car services, which swiftly took us to the top. You can see for miles in every direction, and the Wall, of course, goes as far as you can see.

We walked maybe a mile, through the old, stone guard towers and then walked back. Carrying backpacks full of gear, we were winded and sweat-soaked almost immediately.

We were surrounded by Olympic fans and tourists, and one thing you notice about the natives is their remarkable sense of calm. Even the children we've encountered are well-behaved and sedate. No one ever seems to get angry here.

Coming down the mountain was more of a challenge, and that is not a reference to altitude. We ran into a string of souvenir merchants. The first offered us two T-shirts for $1. Then she changed it to two for 585 yuan. We started walking away and she physically restrained me, knocking her price to 480, then 100, then 80 within 10 seconds.

I kept walking, and this became that scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark," when Indiana Jones has to fight his way through the marketplace.

That's the ancient Chinese defense system at work. If the Wall doesn't stop the Mongol hordes, the merchants will.

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m.-noon on AM-1500 KSTP. jsouhan@startribune.com