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I'm sure from reading the title your thinking of scenic views and laid back walks. Well I can assure you this is no tourist holiday.
We set off from Beijing in the dark of the night on some massive coach complete with terrifying Chinese driving and fantastic choice of in-transit films; The Expendables 2 (Or I Mercenary 2 (If you want it in 'Chinglish')). The film was in English yet felt the need for 'Chinglish' subtitles. 'Chinglish' is that fine mix of English and Mandarin that wonderful style of translation that is notorious around China and Europe. I saw a wonderful 'Famous' brand T-shirt with the logo 'Stars And Straps!' under the American flag - perfect.
Anyway we rocked up to this small guest house, basically it was the space in-between two other buildings creating a court yard kind of thing; medieval style. Luckily I and Mat secured a room for two people the room was basically a massive 'bed' and a singular (untrustworthy) chair. The bed was large enough for 4 people and hard enough to tap dance upon, apparently tiles and foam are the way to go in china. Luckily the window had a Hench bug shield, as it was besieged by the biggest damn thing you have ever seen. Literally 4 inches long and weighing in at 600g it could take out a small dog. That's not even mentioning the sound that it makes. It's like a damn lawn mower. The food was suitably weird, a strange vegetable I have never seen before and whole fish, not to mention the guys eating the fish eyes and the Scottish Alex telling me to eat the cheek…an act of which I cannot recommend.
I awoke the next morning, my back suitable mangled by the solid bed as I staggered out towards the toilets. They were next to the house slightly lower down, my solid knowledge of Chinese allowed me to deduce which was the male toilet that and the fact that I could clearly see past the feeble attempt at covering the window with a black bag, inside there was a man staring up at me from squatted position. Our eyes met, with that kind of 'no one needs to know' look and I hurried swiftly away only to come back 10 minutes later to battle the beast myself. But you reader, do not need to know about that. Just look at the pictures and cry yourself to sleep.
Being nothing more to do we all prepared ourselves for the hike up to the 'wild wall'. The 'Wild wall' is an area of the Great Wall that has remained untouched; it is safeguarded by the locals who have shifts defending the entrance from tourists. All I can say now, was I wish to god I had known what to expect.
- comments
Will B Love it m8. I've always wanted to see great wall... athough the facilities seem somewhat grim!