Everyone made it up for 5:30am but I'm not sure how many people were actually awake. Once we were all on the bus I think it took about twenty seconds for most people, including me to go straight back to sleep.
After two hours on the bus we caught our first glimpse of the Great Wall, it looked amazing but scary as it tracked almost vertically along a mountainside.
It wasn't long after that, that we arrived at the entry point for our walk. The section that we were walking was not the normal tourist route and this was evident as we were the only people there. Having got our tickets we set off on our 10km walk. We were soon joined by a group of locals that would escort us along much of the Wall.
I originally had a local man walking with me and Samantha had a woman, however they seemed to swap round when it appeared Samantha needed help on the rougher sections. Both of them spoke amazingly good english and I even got another Chinese lesson as we walked along.
The Wall itself was a spectacular sight, snaking across the mountain tops as far as the eye could see. The scenery either side of the Wall was also breathtaking. We found out that the Wall used to lie along the boarder between China and Mongolia, but that boarder is now 1000km's away, although the local people with still consider themselves Mongolian.
By the time we hit the harder section of the walk Samantha and I had separated, as I was keeping pace with Paul and the two South Africans near the front and Samantha was with Vicky and Sinéad further back. As they were quite far behind the group their guide took them on a different route that missed out the steepest part of the wall to help them catch up. This, in the end put them about 10 minutes ahead of us.
When we had finished the walk and had left the wall the group celebrated with a nice cold beer whilst we waited for Vicky, Samantha and Sinéad not knowing they were waiting for us in the restaurant down the road. After a while Paul and I were just about to go and try and find them when Vicky appeared looking for us.
We then revived ourselves with a nice cold drink and some food at the local restaurant before our bus back.
On the way back totally knackered and dying for a nice shower the bus had a blowout and we ended up standing on the side of a Chinese motorway for nearly an hour, not the best way to finish the day.
By the time we hit the harder section of the walk Samantha and I had separated, as I was keeping pace with Paul and the two South Africans near the front and Samantha was with Vicky and Sinéad further back. As they were quite far behind the group their guide took them on a different route that missed out the steepest part of the wall to help them catch up. This, in the end put them about 10 minutes ahead of us.
When we had finished the walk and had left the wall the group celebrated with a nice cold beer whilst we waited for Vicky, Samantha and Sinéad not knowing they were waiting for us in the restaurant down the road. After a while Paul and I were just about to go and try and find them when Vicky appeared looking for us.
We then revived ourselves with a nice cold drink and some food at the local restaurant before our bus back.
On the way back totally knackered and dying for a nice shower the bus had a blowout and we ended up standing on the side of a Chinese motorway for nearly an hour, not the best way to finish the day.
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
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