i) The Great Wall of China – Mutianyu Section
Address:
CHM7+3JC, Mutianyu Rd, Huairou District, Beijing, China, 101406.
Direction:
Considering the distance from downtown Beijing (about a 1½ to 2 hours' drive), there is no direct public transportation from Beijing to this Mutianyu. It requires a few transfer so that's the challenge.
By Train
Get on the train at
By Bus
i) Bus 867 (nonstop bus) from Dongzhimen Wai Bus Station to Mutianyu, departing from 7am with 2.5 hours duration. The bus from Mutianyu to Dongzhimen Wai Bus departs from 2pm and the last one will leave by 5pm. The bus fee for one-way trip is about RMB16. Though Bus 867 is quite convenient, it only opens during the peak season (April to the mid-November).
ii) Take Bus 916 (most common bus taken by tourist) express from Dongzhimen Wai Bus Station and get off at Huairou North Rd. Bus fee is about RMB15, duration about 1.5hr and runs between 6am till 8pm. Then you need to walk across the street and go straight for about 500 meters to find Huairou North Rd Stop on the other side of the road where you can take Bus H23 to Mutianyu Roundabout for about RMB5 . It is the nearest stop to the scenic area within only 200 meters. Or else you can take a taxi to Mutianyu for about RMB50. From Huairou North Rd Stop to Mutianyu usually takes about 30mins (by taxi) and 50mins (by bus).
iii) New Mutianyu Shuttle Bus from Beijing Tourist Distribution Center (Near Metro Line2 Qianmen Stop Exit C) to Mutianyu Great Wall Parking Lot 1. Bus fee RMB100 (including the entrance fee) and operates within 9am till 3:30pm.
Entrance Fee:
Great Wall Admission fee: RMB 45 / person
Cable car: RMB 120 (round trip) / RMB 100 (one way)
Chair lift / Toboggan: RMB 120 (round trip) / RMB 100 (one way)
Average time for this activity: 1/2 day
Accessibility Information: While the cable car can take visitors directly to the base of the Great Wall, you need to be able to get into the cable car on your own and climb some stairs after you get off the cable car before you can get onto the Wall. That said, Mutianyu Great Wall is not suitable for wheelchair users.
Operating Hour:
7:30am - 6:00pm (April to October) or 8:00am-5:00pm (November to March)
We started our day around 9.30am. First destination was to catch bus No. 916 from Dongzhimen Transport Hub / Bus Station. To get there, we took subway as per below route:
Dengshikou (Line 5) ==> Yonghegong (Exchange Line 2) ==> Dongzhimen Station (Line 2)
Wajah keceriaan before the journey with beautifull autumn gold ginkgo tree at the back.
From the Dongzhimen subway station, we took Exit B on the left hand side to enter the Dongzhimen Transport Hub (Bus Station). This was when we encountered another test, a big one that almost spoil the all plans that day. Such a tragedy... shamed on us.
To the Bus Station at Dongzhimen.
Have you experience sometime in your life even you have taken extra precaution, fully prepared with all information….. but still you made mistake, still being cheated, fell into SCAM. Well that happened to us in this trip.
The story was, not only we had made it stored in our memory, we even had it printed that we have to take bus no 916 to Mutianyu (stop at Huairou North Street Stn). However, when we reached the bus station, we met one local Chinese woman holding a walkie talkie approached us asking ‘xi nali… xi nali’ (at least that what I heard) and I knew “nali” means "where" so I showed her the word Great Wall China written in mandarin (remember my previous post to always have the places you wanted to visit printed in mandarin so that easy to ask local for direction). I did mentioned 916 bus number in mandarin to her and quickly she ushered us to one of the bus waited there and said “Great Wall” yes.. yes… I looked at the number, 980… so I asked her again “Great Wall, 916 bus, this bu yao.. bu yao”. But she insisted that the 980 bus will go to the same direction as 916 but faster as not much stops. Hesitated but a bit convinced also so we hopped into the bus. That was our BIG MISTAKE... but at that time we didn’t noticed anything as we saw she approached other people also, especially aliens like us (in the same time very busy talking with the walkie talkie) and they also got into the bus (kalau sesat biar secara berjemaah kan…), so we felt a bit relief.
At first we follow the right direction, to the 916 bus platform. But as you can see, 980 platform also nearby.
Ok we reached the platform. This was where "Tragedi November" happened.
Siap amik gambar route but no point. They took advantage by our illiterate to read Chinese.
The bus started the journey and when it entered the sub-urban area… the view was superb so I was distracted a bit, enjoying the view, but still awared everytime the bus stop as we needed to get-off at Huairou North Street Stn. (about 10 stops) so I started counting from the beginning. 🤲🏻🤲🏻
Elevated highway.
Spotted an intercity train.
The toll marked that we entering to the sub-urban area.
After about approximate 1hour of journey, the bus stopped at one station and suddenly the driver called us to get off the bus, saying “Great Wall… Great Wall”…. So I thought ya we made it to the Huairou North Street Stn. even as per my counting we still didn’t reached the 10th stop. But as per that Chinese woman told us earlier, bus 980 less stops so ya it make sense...
When we and some passengers got off the bus, suddenly we were approached by many local taxi drivers (black taxi). We managed to skip them and checked the environment however it doesn’t looked like we were in correct station. One of the taxi driver there who can speak a bit English told us that this was not the Huairou North Street Stn. and to make things worse there were no public bus available here to Mutianyu. OMG, this was nightmare…. We blamed ourselves for being so stupid… so ya next time always remember to stick to your tickets (eh ala2 ayat harry Potter).. NO, stick to your itinerary. If your reference is to get 916 bus, don’t ever gatal to take 980. We were soo pissed off with ourselves and that Chinese woman. We could hear her voice at the walkie-talkie speaking with the taxi driver there. Obviously that was their modus operandi to trap outsider like us from the bus station and brought us here where we left with no option either than taking the taxi and it was no brainer that they will push the price high. Imagined desperate people like us…!! 🤬🤬
Taxi jerung dah siap menunggu.
Environment didn't look the same like what we read about Huairou North Street Stn. Lenggang, hening... khas utk mangsa2 scam mcm kami.
No other bus will stop here, only 980. What a SCAM!! 🫣🫣
Owh my… owh my…
I felt like to cry, blank didn’t know what to do. Even thought to return back to Beijing and take back the right bus but it was almost 12pm so we didn’t have time to do that. We stranded here with all these taxi drivers like a shark surrounded us waiting their time to swallow …. The taxi driver who talked to us before wanted to rip us off by asking for RMB150 for one way journey!! This will definitely burst our budget so it was a NO NO. I couldn't imagine to cancel this trip as we had planned it for so long and it was one of the main reason why we visited Beijing!!! I also didn’t know where the other people who we thought in same direction like us been, maybe they took the taxi or they went to the other location. Even in that situation, I still kept my pride. I didn’t want to surrender with them and got into their trap easily. First thing I did was asking Nor to get away from there so we crossed the road, in a hope that we could think properly without been physco and influenced by that taxi driver.😰 We just walked further without no direction, luckily after some distance, we met another taxi and he offered us a ride for RMB60/way. Even still out of our budget, but way much cheaper and he even helped us to buy the tickets. Initially he said he only sent us to the parking where we needed to walk a bit to buy the tickets at the centre, but suddenly he changed his mind and brought us up to the Tourist Service Building. Maybe he pitied with us… ya after what happened, there’s still good people out there. As long as I didn’t take the taxi from the driver at the station who scammed us, I felt relief already. 😮💨 Even we lost a couple of hours there, unfortunately but nevermind. Geram punya pasal!!
So here we was, after a bit of drama, definitely a very good lesson one…. we finally reached here. My top wishlist… THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. So we continue story in Mutianyu at next post ya... before that I leave you with my photo in front of the entrance to Mutianyu Great Wall. Till then..... 😍😍
No comments:
Post a Comment