Day 5 & 6

Day 5 - I did one of the best things I have ever done in my whole entire life. Let me begin from the start. Firstly last night at 11.30am my room mate finally arrived. Her name is Helen, she's 30 and from Ireland. She is an absolute blast! We hit it off straight away and she is just like me! (I'm sure we'll be having plenty of poo stories together) So we were both really excited to meet each other so sat up chatting for ages. We finally got to sleep and woke at 6am! An hour later and we met up with the rest of the group to get a 3 hour bus journey to the Great Wall. An hour into the drive and my belly started to feel a little dodgy. I thought oh God I've been fine all week so far, please don't start going crazy on me now. We stopped at a MacDonalds for a wee stop and I took full advantage of going to the loo. I wasn't sure if I was needing a s*** or to be sick. But either way, as I sat in the disabled loo (more private and cleaner and you get a sit down toilet!) I realised nothing was going to happen.

I climbed back on the board the bus for the rest of the journey. Boy did I feel rough! But once we got to the wall and started walking away from the bus I started to feel a lot better. I think the bus journey was just perhaps making me feel ill. The buses are so bumpy and scary and constantly taking over traffic! Never look at the front of the bus because you seriously think you are going to die! But thankfully I was now feeling fine! But geee I am soooo not looking forward to the 7 hour bus journey that we will be doing on this tour!

Anyways, we arrive at the wall and get our tickets. We are shown the route we are going to take. The part of the wall we were going to climb isn't very touristy and is one of the hardest sections to do. Oh great I thought, do you realise how unfit I am!! Just walking up this path to get onto the wall nearly killed me. But luckily a bunch of Chinese people came along and they pair up with each of us to help us on our climb. The Chinese woman who picked me was the sweetest lady ever. We got to the wall and started our trek. Oh my God!!! I knew it was going to be hard, but never in my life did I think it would be this hard! I actually thought oh my god I can't do this. The wall is absolutly massive and it doesn't matter how many photos you may see of it, you can never actually grasp how big it is until you see some of it. The steepness we had to climb and the amount of steps was unbelievable. I have to be honest, I really really struggled. There were moments when it was really really scary and as we went along the group skattered to fit their own pace. There was me with my Chinese lady trailing behind. She was so lovely though. There were times when we had to climb downwards and I really was pooing myself so she held my hand. Haha. And the whole walk she carried my big bottle of water. She was an absolute star. If it wasn't for her help I wouldn't have made it. The views were spectacular though and just looked soooo amazing. Seriously the coolest thing I've ever seen. Sadly though it was quite smoggy so my photos didn't show the walls true beauty. But the end we were all soaked through with sweat and absolutly shattered.

Then... I went from having the best experience of my life to the worst. There was a flying fox (zip wire) that went down accross this river to a boat which would take us back to the bus. Well I hate all things scary and I hate heights. I was going to walk down but everyone else was going to take the zip wire, including a couple who are about 50. Would have been so embarrassing not doing it! My new friend Fiona persuaded me to go on and that we would go on together. I'd never been so scared in my life. I felt all faint and I thought I might have a little cry. So i got attached and away we went. Well it was so much fun and we were loving it, waving our hands in the air screaming. Next thing I know Fiona lets out the biggest scream I've ever heard and I see blood absolutly all over my legs. I look down and Fiona had hit her hand on the wire and the top of her middle finger was gone. It was the horriblest experience of my life. I won't go into too much detail as you don't need to hear it. She fainted in my arms and it was the worst thing I've ever seen. We got her to a hospital and I stayed with her the whole time. 2am we finally got back to the hotel. She needed a bone from her toe to be put in her finger so they could build the finger back up. Now bless her, she is in a wheelchair and won't be able to carry on the tour. She will be going home. It was so sad and I feel so sorry for her. I shall never go on a zipwire ever again in my whole entire life now. And the reason I just told you that story is to tell you all never put your hands up when on a zip wire!!!!

But on to another subject now...

Day 6 - Today we woke up nice and early. I was bloody tired. We did a tour round the Forbidden City and we were all sooooo bored. We had a guide and she was just so boring. We all felt really tight cause we just all looked so uninterested. Once we had finally got to the end we walked to this local school charity which Intrepid (the tour company) supports. It is a school for people with learning disabilities. It was absolutly amazing and one of the highlights of the tour so far. We all had the best time. They fed us then did a show for us. They did lots of different dances and would then grab us all up to dance with them. It was so much fun and we laughed loads. Then we had a caligraphy lesson which was really cool. Even though I was a little s*** at it.

This afternoon we chilled out and got our bags ready to check out. Off to the train station now for a 11 hour overnight train! Should be interesting! Hope they have decent toilets!