The Great Wall and Summer Palace - 5th July

An early start this morning (0700) to drive across Beijing and North to the mountains and The Great Wall of China. We are going to Mutianyu - a good area for accessing the Wall with a chance to walk along it for a couple of miles.

After a sleepy 2 hour drive through city, country and mountain scenery the minibus pulled into a car park and it was time to get our first sight of the Wall. I definitely didn't expect it to still be so far away and so high above us. We were faced with a mammoth climb up hundreds, if not thousands, of steps, each designed for the shorter length of Chinese leg.

So, 30+ minutes of thigh-burning torture later we reach the base of the Wall. I suffered most on the climb with Dominic bounding up the steps. But, wow, was it worth every single step. Climbing through an old access point next to a watch tower we were presented with a fantastic view of the Wall climbing and dipping along the contours of the surrounding mountain ridges. It was very quiet, not many other people around, and breathtaking. We walked along the wall for 2.5 hours, through quite a few watch towers, traversing a number of steep valleys with guess what - more steps!

There are, truly, not enough words to describe the raw, rugged beauty of this truly colossal man-made structure - and we've only seen a few miles of it. We could have stayed up there days not just hours.

Back to the minibus to move on to the Summer Palace via a stop for lunch - Chinese food for anyone?

From the calm and tranquility of the Great Wall's mountainous wilderness to the hot sweaty hoards of Chinese tourists trailing around the Summer Palace is a stark contrast. The beauty of the grounds and the buildings is slightly tainted by the loud squawking of guides with mobile speakers being followed around by groups of Chinese tourists.

Again, the place is enormous. A large number of very ornate buildings, beautiful Temples and an enormous lake - thankfully no impromptu swimming this time. There were another ridiculous amount of steps to reach the Temple at the top of Longevity Hill but the view was reward enough.

Hit Beijing rush hour on the way back. That was manic, much worse than anything we get in London or on the M25 - up to 6 lanes of vehicles all tooting and changing lanes.

Out and about for dinner, chicken kebab off a street stall for starters and then an incident at the dumpling restaurant. We tried to go in but got shooed away by a waitress only to be chased after and dragged back by the owner. After going through the menu we were told we only had a choice of 2 types of dumpling, so we enjoyed both with beers paid £5 for the lot and left. Only then did we realise they had been trying to close when we first arrived.

Back at the hotel my internet problems started!

Tomorrow Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City.