The Great Wall

After spending couple of days in Beijing we booked a tour to the Great Wall from our guesthouse. The perk was that this tour wasn't going to take us to the most touristy spot on the wall where most of the other tours from Beijing were heading. We had to take a little bit longer bus ride (which we did not mind) to a more secluded part of the Great Wall and then hike about 10km on the wall to another destination where the bus would pick us up. The only downside was that we had to wake up before 6 am and we would miss our free breakfast :(

The morning arrived and there were 3 tired men dragging their asses to the minibus waiting outside the guesthouse. After snoozing couple of hours on the bus we finally arrived to our destination. And we were very lucky AGAIN with the weather, the sky was clear and blue and no sign of clouds... DE E NAJS!
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9nEPvca4vk )

After a short climb from the village we were standing on the Great Wall. The view was breathtaking. The weather was unbelievably clear compared to the foggy/smog we were used to in Beijing. We had about 20 people in our "group" and we didn't want to get stuck in the end of the line with all the "Samsonite tourists" so we took the lead and pretty soon we had about 1km between us and the majority of the group. We only had our personal local "guides"with us who tried to sell as books and postcards of the wall and when we didn't buy they started following us and telling us facts about the wall as we advanced. This wasn't actually a bad deal because they spoke decent English and knew a lot about the Great Wall even though we knew we would have to buy something in the end. We learned things like some parts we walked were build over 2000 years ago and were untouched and some parts had been reconditioned in the 20th century. About halfway we bought t-shirts that say "I climbed the great wall", nice souvenir. After that our guides turned back for their village waiting for the spring to come so they could plant their sweet corn with the Yuans from our t-shirts. Now that we were walking pretty much on our own we could concentrate on the essential: drinking beer, admiring the scenery and taking tons of pictures.

After many many...many steps and one cold beer (yes, only one) we finally arrived to our final destination. There was only one last challenge to accomplish before we would arrive to the village where the bus was waiting: An aerial ropeway where we had to slide over a lake hanging in the air about 40m above the water. Najs. And nobody even died.

In the end we had to wait about 3 hours for the last people to arrive because we arrived a bit before our agreed time and they were almost two hours late. In the end we still made it back to Beijing before the night and headed straight away to our favourite restaurant: Drum`n Gong.

It was a great day, one of the highlights on our trip in China. One more miracle witnessed with our very own eyes.

-Samuli