The Great Wall of China

Trip Start Jun 09, 2003

169

Trip End Jun 02, 2007

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Flag of China Beijing, China
Monday, June 30, 2003

I got up at 7.30am this morning for a 3 hour bus ride to the Great Wall. I had the choice of doing the touristy part of the wall at Badaling, which is a very short walk along the wall with an amusement park alongside. Option 2 that I went for was a 10km, 4 hour hike along an older part of the wall, from Jinshanling to Simatai. It started off okay, but a half hour into the walk I'd already finished the litre bottle of water I'd brought, the temperature was +30oC and I didn't think I'd make it. Imagine my relief to see a little old man selling ice cold water in one of the old watch towers. We were followed nearly half way along the wall by people trying to sell us t-shirts and water. The scenery was amazing, mountains as far as you could see. It was hard work though. Some parts of the wall we had to climb using our hands & feet. It was quite a relief when the cloud came over and it was much cooler - I don't think I'd have made it otherwise. We finally made it to the end. There was a bit of a walk down the hillside into the village to pick up our bus

More Great Wall

. Some of us decided to go down via the Flying Fox which was great fun. It was really high up over a lake. Once at the other side we got a speedboat across into the village. It was a very nice end to the hike.

When we arrived in the village we were told that we were the first tourists to come over the wall since the SARS restrictions had been lifted. We got a half price meal in the restaurant to celebrate and then another 3 hours back in the bus to the hostel. I'm ready for bed now.

Off to Hong Kong tomorrow.

Hilary