Wednesday : sunny

Today we are up early to go see the Great Wall of China. Im very excited it's something I have been wanting to see for some time now.

Our noodles and Vegemite on bread went down well. Then we waited in the hostel reception to be picked up. There were 4 other people waiting to go on our tour also.

We got called up and walked to our bus, the group size increased to 16 at the bus. Other hostels must run the same tour and combine the people to make one group.

Still 16 is a good size compared to 30 people, that's what we got told the group size could be was yesterday.

It was a 2.5 hour drive to the section of wall we went to go see. The section of wall we went to, is part of the famous Badaling Wall, but it's no where near as popular as the main section. Our tours name was The Secret Wall of China, it claimed to take you to were there are no crowds. It didn't seem like the tours name would hold up, when we drove up the driveway to the entry. There were new driveways and car parks, buildings, etc, but when we came to the drop off point there was only one other car there. In fact we were the biggest group there all day, we only saw 6 other people on the wall. It was perfect, we have seen pictures and videos of the main Badaling wall, there are thousands people everywhere and cable cars all over the place. Also that part of the wall was rebuilt in the 80's-90's. The section we went to, had been restored with the original bricks that were on site, and after the restored section, it was the original wall in it's 14th century dilapidated state.

Once we hopped off the bus and climbed up to the first tower, we had a brief rundown on the history of the main badaling wall, and the section we have come to see. The section we came to see was where a farmer/wanna be emperor raveled up an army and broke through the wall, made it to Beijing and took over as emperor. He was murdered and was only emperor for 18 days. Story says that Chinese dumplings in that era were only eaten once a year, and being a farmer he was poor, and only got to eat dumplings once in his whole life. Until he became emperor, he had dumplings every day for most meals. People say that he cared too much about eating dumplings and not ruling the country and that's why he was murdered.

After the brief we were given 3-4 hours to do as much of the 10km return walk as we can. That's it really no more guide, we basically had the whole wall to ourselves. Especially when people started dropping off like Mortein on flies, it was pretty steep in their defense. Out of the 16 people only 5 made it to the last tower, which was 1200m above the sea.

The small group size was a good way to see the wall, and having the place to ourselves was very special. I was very happy today, its been a long time coming. Even the smog lifted slightly so we could get some good photos of the wall off in the distance, rising and falling up and over the mountains.

Amazing really how the wall was built, the amount of man power needed to carry all the materials across the vast distances, and then to actually build the thing, it can circle the globe twice with it's length.

The loss of life building the Wall though was huge, millions of people lost their life, making the Wall a mass grave. The bodies of the deceased were buried in the wall. We didn't see any bones on our walk today.

The walk was great! It started off steeply, well the whole climb was steep actually. The restored part though had nice and level steps to walk on. They also had installed timber stairs over some of the brick steps maybe for protection or to make it easier to climb. Some brick steps were so narrow I could barely fit my toes on, the wide timber treads made it easy for bigger feet.

Soon after the third tower the restoration works slowly disappeared and so did the smoothish brick path. The path went through stages, nice wide walkway with level bricks. Then holes started to appear in the walkway. Then there were upturned bricks and parts of the side wall collapsed . Then huge section of the Wall that looked like in had been hit by a bomb and we had to climb through. Then the path slowly turned to dirt with shrubs. Then the path turned into a dirt track and we were climbing over everything.

Once at the top after the last tower the track deteriorated quite a lot, not many people have been past the last tower, the wall kept on going though. We had a rest and tried to spot more of the wall off in the distance. Unfortunately the smog or rain clouds started to roll in, and visibility was limited. It Probably was a combination of the two, it rained in the evening.

We turned around and made our way back down the Wall. The wind started to pickup on the decent which made it a little more difficult, because with the side walls and the loose rubble, it could of been very easy to fall off the side. The Wall is built on the ridge line too, so it would of been quite a fall. It was a lot faster on the way down, the people that turned back earlier on would of been waiting awhile for us to return. We made it back to the bus with no injures and we soon left.

We stopped off at restaurant for our inclusive lunch, which was nice we got to talk to some of the other people on the tour. Most of the people we spoke to are on a 2-3 Week trip. The food came at the right time I was starting to get muscle twitches, probably low on energy.

After lunch we were back on the bus and I was soon sleeping again. I'm glad I've been able to learn to sleep on the bus that means I don't have to witness anymore crazy bus driving.

We arrived back at the hostel, we had a quick chill out in the courtyard, before going and having dinner.

What a dinner too, we ordered a roast duck with beers and rice. Beijing is renowned in China for it's duck. Two couples that were on the tour also made an appearance at the restaurant. Not sure if they had duck or not, but if they didn't I bet that they wish they did it was that good.

We walked dinner off around some night markets/shops, Kim drove a hard bargain again and picked up a shirt for a friend.

We got back to the hotel and decided to fly instead of catch train to Xian tomorrow. So we packed up and tried to relax after a fantastic day at the Great Wall.