The Mediocre Wall of China

BEIJING: Somehow I have to corcetina the last three weeks into my blog so I'll start with today, then probably head all the way back to Kiev to finish that off and then jump forward to Christmas Day which, sadly, turned out to be the defining moment of the middle of the trip. But before the doom and gloom let's have the excitement of climbing the Great Wall of China today.

Waking at 6:00 - I was lucky to wake up the hostel was supposed to wake me at 5:30 but never did - I scrambled to get ready and downstairs for the mini bus to the Wall. It's only supposed to be about 100k's north of Beijing but somehow it was 10:20before we got there. And freezing cold. My feet were aching. I kept expecting to take off my shoes when I got home to reveal blackened, deformed digits. Luckily with all the exertion of scrambling up and down the wall I managed to warm up.

My trip involved a 10 k hike from a place called Jinshanling to another place called Simatai. Because it was off season there was only really our small tour group on the wall which meant when I skipped away from the main group at one stage I was all alone on the wall, watching it climb dramatically in front of me, meander wildly behind me, surrounded all around by steep hills, rising to knife edge ridges.

A lot of the wall is quite degraded which means there are some really hairy descents, other parts where your walking quite slowly, making sure each foot slides behind the one in front, while at other times your almost on your hands and knees trying to climb up. Overall it was a little narrower than I expected and perhaps not as high but I suppose much of the grandeur comes with the length and the scope of the construction.

The hike ended with lunch and a three and a half hour trip back to Beijing.