...this earthtone suits you...: The Walll

Whilst we didn't do this till Wednesday, its the main thing that we did all week and definitely the thing that most people have asked me about. We decided to take an organised trip from the Hostel that would take us to an entrance of the Wall in Jingshanglin and then we trek along the wall, some 10km to the next exit at Simitai, Daunting!

Whilst the organised tour meant that we had to get up at 7am and take a 4 hour bus journey, it was well well worth it, as it was far less crowded than the sections of the wall closer to Beijing would have been in National Week. Apart from the people that came on the Bus with us-some 32 in total- the only other people we saw at the wall were locals trying to convince us that they wrote the guidebook that they were trying to sell, and those who were trying to sell us cold drinks. The drinks sellers had more success than the book sellers.

Our small group was 10 people. 4 people that we met at the hostel: Gaz (blackpool fan) Mike (westham fan) Natalie (Black shirt) Anna (white shirt). And also a friend of Hilary's called Ken who is teaching down in X'ian. Other than that it was the usual 42 Crew-minus Meredith and Becky who wanted to do something else that day (go to starbucks!).

The walk was superb and provided some beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and vistas. The photo's really cannot do the views justice. The area of the wall approaching Simitai has only partially been restored and so at times we had to crawl up the steep slopes on our hands and knees and then slide down the other sides on our arse. Where the wall was crumbling it lead to some impressive Indian Jones-esque slides as well. We also had to cross a suspension bridge at one area where the wall had completedly collapsed, which led to us shouting "drop the stones Mr Jones, Do Not Betray Shiva!".

The weather was superb-being up in the hills it felt like 33 degrees or something-and this made the trek even harder work. But we still made it back to the end of the wall in the allotted 4 hours for the bus to leave on time. Which was more than some Canadians managed who despite being at the exit 3.50pm didn't make it to the bus till 6pm and we all had to wait. I know officially despise Canada. The last section of the wall was the walk to the car park. You had two options; 1. Walk 2. Pay £2 for a Zip Wire down to a boat. Whilst most of our "travelling" partners could not afford such a hefty fee Dave and I jumped at the chance and you can see a video of the leisurly jouney, and the superb views, below.