After two and a half hours and a very bumpy bus ride we made it to the Great wall at Samatai.We started the climb up to the wall and were joined by some Chinese hawkers who followed us all the way to the top and back again. The climb was really steep and after the 7th tower we kept thinking maybe we'll stop at the next one but we kept going to the 12th - the furthest point we could go on this section of the wall and stopped for lunch there looking back over where we'd just climbed. The views were amazing and you could see the wall carrying on for miles into the distance.
The climb back down wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected and we were soon back where we started where we were immediately harrassed by the Chinese hawkers to buy random things. I had my first go at bartering and bought a pack of ten postcards for 10CNY (although still haven't got around to writing them). Some of us took the easy route to get from the wall to the bus by going on the "Flying Fox" (like a zip wire) which was great fun and miles better than walking! We had another bumpy bus journey back and took a detor to go see the new Beijing Olympic stadium which just looks like a giant metal birds nest!
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