Hey! some of you have seen the pics so now here is the news!! We left Beijing very early by bus to get to the Great wall...as i said we were going to a remote part and there really were no other tourists on our trail. Stupidly we started our trek at 10.30 am which meant that we were out in the midday sun...no shade for 5hours in 32 c heat!!! Luckily we had all been advised to bring lots of water and i was like a camel and took 5 litres with me!! As you can see by the pics the sight of all this is breath taking but so is bloody climbing it ha ha!! We had a very steep incline to get on the wall but once up there all was rosey. We had to come off the wall abit due to miltary firing ooo eerr and go into the valleys below (nothing like the rhondda!!) and got a good look at the local farming techniques. All this was along a dirt track and as per usual i was talking away and slippd off the dirt track (please see picture of leg in Xi'an) it was gushing with blood but I was laughing...tho i normally may have cried and thank god we had shane who saved the day with his bandaging efforts!!

After all the drama we had to climb back onto all the wall where in the distance we saw a mirage...... a man selling ice lollies and cold drinks on the wall...yes he really had carried it all up for the valley below. At this point i really couldn't have cared about appearances so bought a bottle of the chilled stuff and chucked it over me...mmmm. The chinese 'mirage' dude and our guide were laughing...i have to learn the word for stupid white girl . Our guide was cool as and smoked like a chimney the whole way round!! Goodie the swedish girl slipped....her's is more of a bruise covering her whole thigh so there was another stop for first aid but then in the distance we saw another mirage.... ha ha...a part of the wall that had been restored and was our final destination!!! We came off the wall and into the beautiful village that u see in the pictures, I bought a celebratory picture of the section of wall that we trekked but it doesn't show it all. We did 40 towers in all!! We got to our hotel complax and Goodie and I had a lil house and garden so did a bit of washing and chilled. In the evening we had a lively meal and four of us stayed up the night just laughing around...you really don't need to drink in my group...we're all crazy!!

The next morning at six some of our group left to trek a harder...steeper part of the wall...four of us were wimps (tho me and goodie were injured) and decided on having a lie in instead. Goodie and I went to the shopping square and we seemed to be the first buyers of the day with all the shop keepers trying to get us in their shop. We were planning an escape route in the loo's....seriously it was like being fed to a pack of lions and i decided i'd buy a hat and goodie a picture and we'd go out there ready to haggle. I won't go into detail but all this involved a crazy shop keeper, walkie talkies, crazy lady running half a mile up to us and then crazy lady following us on a motor bike trying to flog paintings!!!All very wacky but i did manage to buy a hat and goodie did get a painting in the end.

We took a bus to meet the others and then picked them up...indeed it had been harder but a shorter trek for them that day. We then headed back to Beijing to the hostel there...we all crumbled and had a macdonalds....yes it tastes exactly the same but u can have seetcorn instead of chips (???????) and then got on a sleeper train to Xi'an. We were on this for 12 hours. It was surprisingly very compfy and paaa to all those who thought my head torch was stupid as its brill!!! Plus a few of the others have got them so im not a saddo by myself.