Monday 22 September 2014

Beauty of Beijing

We arrived in to Beijing Late on Monday night where our private shuttle vehicle picked us up and took us to our hotel, after 2 days of flying having some one collect us from the airport was a godsend!! We got to our hotel around 11pm and checked in and tried to get a early night ready for our early start.

We had to get up at 7 to get ready for our 8am pick up for our Great Wall tour, our guide Joe (hamlet2008.com@163.com who came very highly rated on trip advisor) met us right on time and we headed off to the Wall; having some one speak English was a huge help, Joe clued us up on local things, places to go and some phrases. It took us around 2 hours to get from our hotel (the Emperor next to the Forbidden City which has a amazing roof top bar) to the start of our walk along the Jiankou part of the wall the only section that is fully original, we were aware it would be a challenge from reading up about it but we were assured our hard work would be rewarded by breath taking views.

We trekked in what seemed like the wilderness for over half an hour (with regular catch our breath breaks) whilst Joe told us the history of the area and about all the different stories associated with the wall, when we got to the first tower it took our breath away unfortunately there is no picture which could convey how stunning it is up there, and even though every part of me was terrified of how high up we were and how easy it could be to fall the views were so breathtaking it was worth it, Louis had no fear what so ever (thankfully as he was the backpack carrier and photo taker as I was too scared to even try get my camera out); as we looked out at the challenge ahead I was daunted by it but knowing Joe did this hike upto 4 times a week and came so highly recommended we completely put our faith in him.

We trekked higher and higher through the deralict towers which looked as though they should have fallen to pieces years ago, the history of it all was fascinating and eased the reality of the challenge; there were parts where I was having to bum shuffle down vertical drops with only a few bricks to help me down and other parts which were like rock climbing without the harness, Louis is a adrenaline junkie and loved every second and he was such a huge support to me, he kept me calm and constantly checked on me though between him and Joe (who was casually walking eating Oreos like it was no challenge) I did feel a bit of a sissy, but when your having to climb on a wall which there is nothing but a huge drop on the other side and plenty of wobbly bricks you can't help but think how easy it would be to fall (I imagine confidence is they key with this); but with every 'challenge ' as Joe calls them, the feeling was amazing to know you had overcome another hurdle and each view was worth every second of fear! After 3 1/2 hours of trekking we reached the end of our part of the wall and began our descent to our vehicle, the sense of achievement was amazing and is something that will stay with us forever I am so glad we decided to do that section of the wall over all the other newly rebuilt commercial section which get packed out with people, during our whole 4 hour trek we saw 8 people and half of those were water sellers! It was perfect and it was also the place where Louis asked me to marry him so it wil always have a special place in our hearts.

We headed back in to Beijing and stopped off to have some traditional Chinese food which was amazing, Joe ordered the food so it was nice to try things out of our usual comfort zone then we headed back to our hotel exhausted from a mix of jet lag, no sleep and excitement. The hotels roof top bar was amazing the views over Beijing were stunning we spent as much time up there as possible during our short stay. Wednesday we were able to have a little lie in and then spent the day exploring the forbidden city area, now maybe we were being nieve but we did not expect everywhere to be as busy as it was definitely believe all the reviews and guide books when they say do things early in the day as it get packed beyond belief in the afternoon, we wondered round Tiananmen square where we had to do numerous security checks and cross a mass amount of roads and there were people there in their thousands it was overwhelming so we wondered away from that area and out towards more rural Beijing which was amazing, streets with lanterns and food stalls and big streets with shops, street sellers and entertainment this was the China we had come to see; when we wondered back we wanted to go to see the forbidden city but the queues were just too long to wait in and a lot of the area was under construction so we just wondered round and took in the atmosphere.

It was soon time for us to leave Beijing and catch a overnight train to Xian which was a experience in its self....