GWoC - 23.10.15 First day on the Wall

Friday 23 October 2015

Our alarm went off at 06:45 and we got up and ready for the day. I had slept well and felt refreshed. We met the rest of the group for breakfast about 07:00 in the hotel restaurant. I had bacon (or facon as we called it as it didn’t look like real bacon), scrambled egg, tomato, pak choi and rice, with a glass of delicious hawthorn juice. We met in the Lobby with our cases at 08:30. We had to give our room keys to Alan so he could check us out and we weren’t allowed to leave the hotel until the checking out process was complete, which involved the staff checking to see that we hadn’t stolen anything from our rooms!

Wall to wall traffic in Beijing

We piled onto the coach and headed first to the airport to check for the 2 missing bags. It took about 1.5 hours to get to the airport in the heavy traffic but the sun was shining on us. 

How some of the loads on the lorries don't fall off I've no idea!

A view of Beijing from the bus 

As we drove through the streets of Beijing we were gazed at by some of the Chinese people because they rarely see Caucasian faces. In turn, we marvelled at the street vendors, the heavily laden bicycles and tuk-tuks. A young road worker smiled and waved at us.

The taxi/coach pull-in area outside Beijing airport

Once at the airport, most of us got off to use the loo and grab a Costa coffee, while Dean and Alan went on a bag finding mission. Beijing and its airport are very busy and we quite enjoyed watching the hustle and bustle as we waited. Dean and Alan returned with the 2 missing bags, which had been put on a later flight, and we set off about 11:15.

There are lots of street cleaners all over Beijing, many with their own home-made equipment

We noticed that Beijing is very clean compared to many other capital cities, certainly in terms of the streets. The green areas are landscaped and beautifully planted, even quite a few miles out of the city the central reservations have clipped hedges. They use lots of conifers, roses and even pine trees in their roadside planting. We passed fields of Sharon fruit, maize and Crab apples. 

At what seemed like random junctions there would be a cluster of street vendors.  

 Our first glimpse of the Great Wall as we arrived at our hotel

A map of the hotel layout to help visitors find their way around

We got to our next hotel, the Huangya Mount Villa Hotel, at lunchtime. The hotel is built within the army garrison building at Yellow Cliff Pass, which is not a tourist area, but important in the history of the Wall as 5,000 Mongolian soldiers were killed here when they got trapped inside the garrison building. This mass slaughter stopped any further attacks on this building.

We went straight to the hotel restaurant where we ate a lovely lunch, again around tables with pick and mix dishes on a Lazy Susan in the middle. The room was lovely and warm, which was a contrast to the chilly wind outside. We ate heartily. 

Dean demonstrates how to use trekking poles

Dean gave a talk to the group on how to use trekking poles and, after a group photo in front of the hotel, we walked to a small car park where 5 small cars were waiting to take us up to the start of our first walk on the wall. 

We passed a few horses tethered and I quite fancied hopping on for a ride to the wall rather than getting in a car! 

The sun was shining and the views over the valley were stunning. 

Nearly there!

We snaked our way up and I was really excited to see my first view of the wall. At the main entrance there was a dog with cute little fluffy puppies. We had no idea who they belonged to as there was no obvious owner. 

Me actually walking on the Great Wall of China!!

I paused a few times on that first stretch, just to absorb the atmosphere and really appreciate that I was actually there in China walking along the Great Wall.

So many steep steps

This part of the wall has been preserved and well maintained. There were loads of steps! Shaun counted steps in order to distract himself from thinking about how steep the wall was. He counted 2,350 actual steps (not paces) in total over the course of the day.

Still amazed that I'm actually walking on the Great Wall of China!

Our guide, Alan

 Becky and Katie pause for a chat while taking in the view

There were magnificent views in all directions. The autumn red, brown and orange leaves further enhanced the beautiful scenery. 

Dean helps Bev up some of the many many steps!

Awesome scenery

Sarah and I pause for a quick photo stop

We passed a couple of towers, one of which we went up to the top of with Leroy and Mike, up a hidden staircase which Sarah and I had difficulty finding! 

We paused at the Heroine Tower (or Widow Tower as it was previously named, following the death of 12 soldiers during the construction of the Huangya Pass)

Oh good, more steps!

We continued for about a 2.5 mile stretch of the wall.

Some of the group needed a helping hand from Dean up and down some of the deep and uneven steps 

Towards the end, we could see a big bridge with people stretching on it

When I zoomed in, I could see it was the first half of our group!

We could see a small open-air arena in the distance with a large yin & yang symbol painted in the centre, which Alan told us is a meeting area. This turned out to be the end of our walk, right next to our hotel. We went in the back entrance of our hotel and showered for dinner. Sarah and I had Room 18.

The whole hotel is entirely one-storey and our rooms were all around an open-air square courtyard containing 26 rooms in all. They were all twin rooms with thin duvets on the fairly hard beds. We all met about 19:00 to walk to the restaurant for dinner, along the main road.

We sat around 2 large round tables with sharing plates to choose from. As before, the food was excellent. There were books about the Great Wall for sale at 30YN (about £3) so I bought one. When we had eaten, we sat outside around a bonfire. 

Most of the group went back to the hotel to go to bed about 20:30 but Sarah, Mike, Dean, Shaun, Leroy and I all stayed a bit longer, until about 22:00, telling jokes and having a great laugh. My stomach muscles ached from laughing so much!

On our walk back we decided to take a short cut across a car park, which involved climbing over a wall and this brought us to a different entrance into the hotel. It’s a vast building because it used to be army barracks and was designed to be confusing to navigate. At first we ignored Shaun’s assurances that he knew the correct way back to our rooms but when we ended up at a dead-end, we asked him to show us the way, which he did!

Our hotel rooms were around a square courtyard of 26 rooms

As we neared the courtyard with our rooms, we encountered some Americans with school children, who were being very loud. We went to our room and got ready for bed meanwhile the American children began running around the square shouting and screaming. Our room was pretty cold so I slept on top of one duvet and had 2 on top because Sarah said that she was warm enough with just one duvet so didn’t need her second one. The kids outside eventually went quiet about 22:45 and we went to bed. I wore a few layers and fluffy socks as I was so cold. 

Our room had 2 pets and some very strange creaky/rattling noises!