Round the World in 301 Days As long as we can just keep putting one foot in front of the other, well make it.

Having landed on our feet so firmly accomodation wise, and having discovered all that the city itself had to offer, we decided that it was time at last for the Great Wall.  Brilliant stuff.  We opted to skip the usual hostel organised tours in the hope of being surrounded by fewer white people and head to the regular bus station ourselves, planning to catch a cheaper and less touristy bus to the wall - some 70km away. People here just dont speak English. None at all. Its totally, full immersion China, everywhere you go. Still, its quite nice and i feel it adds to the adventure! We got our tickets to the part of the wall we wanted to visit through skillful pointing and wild arm gestures and before we knew it we were on our way. Or so was the plan. We'd apparently just mised a bus which had departed as we arrived and were among the first to buy tickets for the next bus which, it turned out, meant waiting until all the seats on the bus were full.  This took about an hour but it did give us a chance to chat to some of the other people going on the same trip as us - a group of Vietnamese Australians who had been travelling for months already and who had plenty of sage advice on China to dish out.  Nice people, and we ended up spending the day with them more or less, giving us the chance to have a photo taken of both Jo and I at the same time.  On the way to the wall there was the obligatory stop at a Jade jewellery warehouse where we were showed around then ushered into a maze like sales room where i spend the entire time avoiding enthusiastic sales peoples money hungry stares, but as soon as we found the exit we were back on the bus and on our way to the wall.
Off season is apparently the only time to see the wall without having to plough your way to the top through a sea of Chinese people.  This is off season and we werent alone.  It was however, apparently, very quiet. We made it to the top and on the way must have been in the photos of several thousand snap happy tourists, but it was a great atmosphere!  Everyone was as excited as everyone else so it was cameras at the ready and full speed ahead. We had 2 hours on the wall before our bus left to take us home so we decided to take a little roller coaster thats on the mountain to take us half way up, giving us the chance to make it to the highest point without sprinting about 5km uphill in an hour.  That little roller coaster is among the most terrifying things ive ever done!  It moved very very slowly but at an impossible angle straight up a cliff. And this little roller coaster was rickety beyond words. Probably the only things that drounded my sobbing and panicked screams was the grinding of antique cogs and clanking of very worn out chains powering on without ever having seen oil.  After getting off though, it was great from start to finish.  The photos, if i manage to get them on here, say it all.  That night , after the bus ride home where the tour guide spoke frantic non stop Chinese all the way back ( as she had done all the way there ), we collapsed in the bar and managed one beer before heading to our room to literally pass out.  The Great Wall Of China is steep. And slippery.  But very rewarding indeed, and im sure already that its going to one of the highlights of this trip.