Saturday June 27 - The Great Wall - Jin Shan Ling to Simatai

We were up early, breakfast, and off in the Truck to The Great Wall. It was about a 2 hour drive from Chengde before we reached the beginning of our 4 hour trek at Jin Shan Ling. We had a short fairly easy climb up to the first Gate (I think its the 12th Gate) on the Wall through the trees and when we got on to the Wall the views were absolutely stunning! The Wall snakes its way along the mountain ridge amongst the lush, treed, conical mountains. This is the Wall of all the pictures you see. It is truly gripping, I just couldn't take my eyes of the views. I wanted each second on the Wall to be 3 times as long. The trek is about 10.5 km and you go up and down the steep, sometimes restored, sometimes unrestored, sections of the Wall for about 25-30 Gates, I lost count! The unrestored, gravel-strewn parts can be quite dangerous and I wouldn't suggest you tackle the wall at this section unless you are fairly fit. The climbs up to each gate were typically around 120 steep stone steps straight up into the heavens, then down 120 steep steps on the other side. It seems to me that you always have to work to see the more amazing feats in the world and this was no exception. The feeling of awe is right up there with Machu Picchu. Others compared it's impact to Petra, and Anchor Wat. A Spanish couple we met told us this is one of the easier sections of the Wall mainly because you walk a little way in between the gates which gives you time to recover. At other parts, construction was in progress and then we had to clamber down off the Wall and walk along the narrow mountain paths beside it. The temperature was about 36C, hazy-sun, and hot, so we were sweating buckets. We had taken a picnic lunch with us and Ray and I stopped to eat it in the shade of one of the Gatehouses. One of the annoyances were the people who tried to follow us along the Wall selling " iced-water, coke, beer"! They literally followed us despite us trying to ignore them, they would tell us to "BE careful!", "Take it slowly", etc. and grab my arm and try to help me up some of the steep parts as I scrambled up the stones and rocks. Eventually, I had a melt-down and Ray gave them Y10 each and told them to leave us alone. It worked. They left us, and then we were all alone with the Wall and its ghosts and memories, apart from the few tourists we met along the way. I have to admit though, the vendors were very fit!! I kept thinking of the Great Wall Marathon and wondered where it was run and if it would be as hard as the trek! At the end we crossed a hanging bridge over a beautiful green Lake, took a last steep climb half way up to the next Gate and turned off to the car park at Simatai to meet the Truck. We had a well earned beer in the restaurant before driving in the Truck to Huariou and the Demyeng Seong Holiday Hotel. Probably had/would be a nice hotel;, but definitely felt like a mauseleum - there was just no-one there. Then we discovered the restaurant was closed! So we ended up getting a cab down to the local village and eating street food. A lot of meat, the vegetables came too late! Then it was back to the hotel in a cab and bed.