After meeting jimmy our guide we proceeded to clear the van into china. It was all going well till they informed us that we needed to leave Big Sal at the border for a day to sort relevant paperwork. This meaning spending a night at a hotel in the reasonably smart town of Erenhot. Quite good to get a shower and a decent nights kip ready for our adventure through china. Straight away we noticed the difference from Mongolia. There was a system, roads that were roads, clean streets and everyone seemed to be doing something.
The next morning we woke up bright and early to go collect Big Sal. She was free and we were ready to hit the road en route to the mighty Great Wall. The roads were class, didn't take us long to knock the miles off. Stopping at a old dinosaur site was a highlight of the drive. The general industry in china was noticeable straight away, every town had factories standing out from miles away. After making good progress we hit a stinking traffic jam holding us up for hours, only to find out we were in the wrong bloody que. The drive following this was stunning which made up for it.
The next morning was the Great Wall. Booooommmmmm!!! As we approached, all around you could see the wall stretching along the hills. Winding in and out, up and down. Quite an impressive sight. Amazing to think they built in thousands of years ago. The first part of the wall to visit was a more touristy section Bandaling. Built in1368-1644 and heavily restored in the 1950s. It was a stronghold point, a fort surrounded by a series of walls running into the rolling hills with many watchtowers scattered throughout. One of the watchtowers was a place they used to set fires to raise an alarm of an attack for the rest of the wall to let others know the wall had been breached. There was hundreds maybe thousands of people so we were keen to move to a less touristy spot. But before that perfect opportunity for a where's willy!
The next spot that we arrived at was a part of the wall that had not been rebuilt. It was to much of a walk so we proceeded to the next part Mutianyu. A 3km section with 26 watchtowers built in the Ming dynasty
We caught the chair lift to the top of the wall. Trying to walk as much of it as we could before it shut. This part of the wall was rebuilt to a really good standard, until we reached a part that was still in ruins. It was good to see what it really looked like. After chilling for a bit we headed back down. Finding a perfect spot for some photos, we stopped and got our camera man (jimmy) to take a few photos. We noticed a few people looking up at us as were in full posing position. Oops we obviously had no clothes on. A few people had a eyeball of all three of us. Next thing was the slide away, basically a toboggan type thing that takes you down from the top of the wall to ground level. "Your a pussy if you use the breaks" we didn't we nailed it down! Every little junction Chinese blokes telling us to slow down. Bollocks to that we went even faster! Cya!
At the bottom we met a few Germans who were keen for a lift to Beijing. As we were going that way they jumped in and Beijing was in our sights.
Dunny
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