Today was our first trip away from Beijing, so we had an early start beginning with a 3 hour bus trip out of the city and over to the Great Wall of China where we would complete an 11km walk along the wall. The weather forecast for today was rubbish and leaving Beijing it was pouring down so we were all expecting a 5 hour trek along the wall in the rain.

We got to the drop off point for the bus, which was all a bit commercialised with souvenir shops and a ticket office! I can believe you have to pay to walk along the wall. I suppose it pays for the renovations and maintenance of the wall and the general up keep of the park. As you will see from the first picture we were all dressed up with multiple layers and waterproofs ready for the odd soaking or two but by the time we finished we had all discarded our layers and were walking around in t-shirts absolutely boiling with clear blue skies.

And for today's Chinese history lesson.....

The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in northern China, built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by the Xiongnu from the north and rebuilt and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century. Since the 5th century BC, several walls have been built that were referred to as the Great Wall. One of the most famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains; the majority of the existing wall was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. The most comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has recently concluded that the entire Great Wall, with all of its branches, stretches for 8,851.8 km (5,500.3 mi). This is made up of 6,259.6 km (3,889.5 mi) of sections of actual wall, 359.7 km (223.5 mi) of trenches and 2,232.5 km (1,387.2 mi) of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China

The walk today definitely proved to be the highlight of the trip so far and I am sure that is was mainly due to being able to see the sun and blue skies and not the smog of Beijing, but the wall itself was absolutely amazing and it was definitely worth getting the bus 3 hours away from Beijing and going somewhere where the wall was still in parts in its original condition and not rebuilt as it was in many of the tourist places.

The only real downside of the walk were the 7 or 8 local people who attached themselves to each individual person or couple and although they told us about some of the history of the wall and of course how they used to be farmers that had their land taken off them by the government. I did feel sorry for them and I knew that it would only be a matter of time that they opened their bags and tried to sell us something. I’ll tell you something, they were very dedicated as they must have walked about 5km with us first. Feeling sorry for my guy I bought a Great Wall of China book and said no to the chopsticks, postcards, t-shirts, hats, posters, etc that he had with him. It felt quite nice to help him out, only to find another guy about 10 minutes away selling the same book for over half the price that I paid (and everyone else) so we all felt a bit conned after that!

We stayed the night at The Great Wall Hostel in Sĩmǎtái and where to head back to Beijing tomorrow on the bus.