Avoiding the crush at the Great Wall

Chinese emperors built the Great Wall to keep out rampaging hordes of Mongolian soldiers mounted on horseback streaming down from the north, but no amount of stone and mortar can repel hordes of tourists riding luxury motor coaches. These groups, armed with digital cameras, arrive by the thousands each day. You can avoid them, though, by veering slightly off the beaten path to tour a part of the wall that is less visited. Hiring your own driver will also vastly improve your Great Wall experience.

According to urban legend, the Great Wall is visible from outer space. Like many tales that get passed around from modem to modem, it is wrong. The structure, which follows the undulating contours of the hills and is in some areas no more than an earth-colored pile of dirt and rubble, is barely visible from an airplane flying at 40,000 feet, let alone by an astronaut in low earth orbit.

What may be visible from outer space, though, are the numerous shiny trinkets and tchotchkes sold at the unending souvenir stands at Badaling, the most popular choice for tourists to view the wall. The place should rename itself Bada-bling.

Badaling suffers from its close proximity to Beijing. From the capital it is easy to sign up for a bus tour or hire a taxi that will take you there. Since Badaling is conveniently located right off a multi-lane interstate highway, it is easily accessible to tour buses.

A much less visited section of the wall is 55 miles north of central Beijing at Mutianyu. The last 10 miles are by local roads, which makes it less accessible for tour buses. The ride from Beijing took us about an hour and 10 minutes. Badaling often has more than 100 tour buses in its parking lot; when we went to Mutianyu there were two - and only enough parking spaces for about 10 total.

Visitors do walk through a row of souvenir vendors to get to the entry gate (they can't be avoided wherever tourists congregate), but they are less intrusive here.

The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall dates from 1368 and was built upon the foundation of an earlier wall from about 550 A.D. Visitors can amble anywhere over a 1.5-mile stretch. The structure is about 14 feet tall and is accessed via a steep hike or a short cable-car ride. Naturally, we opted for the ride.