GWoC - 28.10.15 Tobogganing-tastic!

Wednesday 28 October 2015

My alarm was set for 07:30 but I could hear Bev and Kate moving around downstairs from just before 7. Breakfast was at 08:00 so we all got ready and went down to the restaurant. We were staying in this hotel for a second night so we didn’t have to take down our duffel bags. There was a big steaming bowl of porridge on offer this morning so I had 2 bowls, both with a small dollop of strawberry jam.

 We chose our snacks for the day

The front of the hotel

We left the hotel about 09:00 and set off walking to the wall. It took us a good couple of hours to reach today’s section and it was virtually all uphill and the road/path up was pretty steep in parts.

 This truck drove around trying to temp the locals to buy whatever the stuff was in that container. I couldn't work out what it was. There was a tannoy system fitted and the driver was talking into it constantly, probably saying "Roll up, roll up, buy your ..." 

We walked via a road to start with through Xinying village down in the valley and then on a concrete path.

The higher we got, the further the view stretched below us. From the top we could even see the tower blocks of Beijing on the horizon. The weather was glorious again with full sun all day but there was a chilly wind up on the wall.

There were some really steep flights of steps to contend with but I amazed myself at how unphased I was by the steep climbs and descents. I took it all in my stride and had no nerves whatsoever. The main difference with today compared to previous days was the number of tourists on the wall. It was wall to wall tourists in some areas! There were loads of all nationalities and the majority were impatient and rude.

When some of our group needed space and time to go down some steep steps, being helped by Dean, a big group of non-English speaking tourists were so ignorant and just wanted to push past. I stood at the top and said “No” and they did wait, even though they started arguing among themselves. It seems a firm ‘no’ is understood by all languages! I can’t abide rudeness or impatience.

It was so fantastic to see some of our group who were fearful of heights becoming more and more comfortable with steep slopes and steps. I can relate to it from my experiences last year and it’s wonderful to see others conquering their fears too.

We stopped for lunch on top of a tower, with all but 2 of us eating the sandwich they’d made at breakfast. Leroy and I, being gluten free, had no lunch today as there had been no rice or pancakes available from the hotel. Instead I ate a hard-boiled egg and a banana.

Inside one tower, the walls were lined with fabric which people were invited to write graffiti upon, and a few of us did just that, even though it went against the grain for me. It just felt wrong writing on the wall!

We walked about 15 towers today and off one were loos and a coffee stand selling cucumber flavour Lay’s (Walker’s) crisps!

Cat on a hot tin roof!

Sarah bought a coffee and invented a new way of cooling coffee inside a takeaway cup, by ripping a strip right across the whole of the lid. I don't know that it'll catch on!

Cable cars taking people to/from the wall

We had a choice of ways of getting down from the wall today: cable car, chair lift or toboggan. A few of us chose to take the toboggan option which meant we had a longer walk along the wall as the toboggan was about 6 towers further along from the cable car.

This was my favourite sign written in Chinglish: 'Glass steps carefully slip.' As long as you slip carefully on the glass steps, you'll be fine!

There was a random photo shoot going on

We finally reached the toboggan run and we were all very excited at the prospect!!

We were given a talk at the top by an attendant wearing a long green military type coat: We must not stop and must keep 35 metres between each toboggan.

Zooming down on a little toboggan was great fun although it’d have been better if we could go faster!

The gulley was stainless steel and the carts were black plastic with a large lever in the centre: push forward to go and pull back to slow/stop. It was excellent fun. Dean used the GoPro camera to film as he went down so hopefully there’ll be some good footage for the trek video.

This chap walked past as we were standing outside Subway

We met up with the rest of the group at the bottom. Those who had gone down via the cable car or chair lift had made it down before us because we had walked 6 towers further to get to the exit for the toboggan. They were waiting for us at a Subway shop offering free wi-fi. Because Leroy and I hadn’t eaten much for lunch, Alan bought us a bag of cooked chestnuts. They were delish!

We all piled onto a shuttle bus which took us back down to the bottom of the valley to where our coach was waiting to bring us back to the hotel a mile or two down the road.

We went back to our hotel room that we were sharing with Bev and Kate, and Sarah had a doze while I got my bag sorted and wrote my blog. There was no hot water available to the rooms on our floor so I had a half shower in cold water. Sarah showered and even washed her hair: she’s hard core!

We went down for dinner at 18:30 and, like last night, we had some slightly spicier dishes. It was all delicious. Here in China we’re given such tiny little bowls and plates. It’s going to be odd to go back to eating off a large plate again at home!

After we had eaten we had a brief from Dean about the plan for tomorrow (as we had every evening of the trip) and then those of us who had paid extra to go on the extension trip to Xi'an had a talk from Alan about what we’d be doing. It sounded fab and we were quite excited! Sarah went up to bed before me for a change, about 20:30 but I wasn’t long behind, about 21:30.