We actually managed to wake up in time to have breakfast and get on the bus!

This morning we drove to Mutianyu where we starting trekking on the wall.

Once at the wall the first thing we had to do was to stop off to buy lunch. We popped into Subway who were blaring out Ed Sheeran. (We wish we could say we were joking but it’s true).

Some of the group opted to take the cable car up the mountain but we opted to walk with Mitch ( a retired American ) and Simon ( UK policeman/ superhero ). After climbing around 1000 steps/stairs Angela was regretting this, having not slept for 3 nights and having a bad cough but we came here to walk.

Around 4000 steps later we reached the wall itself. After a short trek along the wall we got to our meeting point at Tower 15 (the Wall is mapped out by its watch towers). Simon had got there in half the time it took us. Our guide, who had taken the cable car, was nowhere to be found. We waited for around 30 minutes then headed off by ourselves to our lunch stop at Tower 20. Our guide and the rest of the group were there!

After lunch we climbed and scrambled up to the highest point (we don’t remember signing up for mountaineering) but the view was worth the effort

[It is worth pointing out at this point that Chinese health & safety is non existent]

We took a trek/scramble/mud slide back down an “easier” path through the mountains trees to our village Jiankou ('Arrow Trigger')

Our bus was waiting for us at the bottom and took us to our guest house. We were all tired and looking forward to lying down, a hot shower and some well deserved rest. What we found was a totally different story.

Our bedroom was clean but FREEZING. The bathroom, which later reduced Alan to a state of hysteria, was diabolical and the guest house itself was shambolic. You could sit on the toilet to take a shower but 1) there was only cold water available and 2) water only came out of 5 holes in the shower head (Angela was the only one of our group brave/stupid enough to use this). The floor was grotty but some mouldy flip flops had been kindly provided (Angela had her own). The basin wasn’t attached to the wall, was balanced on a pedestal that wasn’t attached to the floor and had one rusty cold tap. The toilet was spotless!!!! However in rural China there are water shortages and most of the time none of these things work.

We had to work for our dinner by learning to make dumplings. These were then served to all of the guests so couldn’t have been too bad. Now, the facilities may be atrocious but the owner is a fantastic cook. Dinner was delicious.

After dinner we went to bed to get warm. We switched on the electric blanket, piled all three quilts we could find on the bed, Alan put on his woolly hat and we settled down praying for a good nights sleep and wondered why we had paid for this!