The Great Wall, Simatai, China

What holiday to China would be complete without a visit to the great wall?

We thought ours would so we traveled 3 hours by mini bus to the Simatai section of the wall. I had heard from a whiny American tourist that it had taken her 3 hours to climb to the top of this section and it was the hardest thing she had ever done, once I got a look at her trashy make up and her stick insect legs I figured that it couldn't possibly be that hard. I was almost wrong.

We started climbing at 9am at the car park and made it to tower 12 (the top) at about 10.45am. It was almost 2 hours of very hot sweaty slogging up uneven steps or very slippery ramps. Luckily we were aided by Action Man and his friend, middle aged farmers from the village down the road. The local farmers earn some extra cash by helping tourists up and down the wall and then getting them to buy souvenirs from them at outrageous prices.

Action man had the biggest calves I have ever seen on a Chinese man, his real name was Li Cheng Jun, he was Brock's mascot for the day and thought that I was incredibly beautiful, even when I had a big sweat patch on the arse of my shorts! He did a great job at taking photos of both of us posing all over the wall though, thanks Action man (Mr Li).

My mascot for the day was his friend the lovely Wan Xuo Ping. Who held my hand up and down all the steep bits and kept asking me if I was OK even though she was puffing and panting more than I was. I swear by the time we reached tower 10, I could hear her heart beating. I was a little worried that she was going to have a heart attack and we would be carrying her down to the cable car.

No one had a heart attack and the view from tower 12 was pretty amazing. But I'm not sure if I have ever sweated that much before. Eventually we bought an over priced T-shirt that says "I climbed the Great Wall" and very over priced post cards from our mascots and then took the flying fox across the lake back to the car park which cut a whole 10 minutes walking off our journey - yippee! Actually the flying fox was very exciting mainly due to the fact I though I was going to plunge to my death as they hadn't screwed my carribeena closed! They have different standards of OH&S here in China, that and hygiene and personal space.......the list goes on but I shan't continue.

The great wall was a wee ripper, I also won't mention the smog that it was shrouded in as I think Brock already has that covered.

The great [ed.] American President Mr R. Nixon himself on his historic 1972 visit to China also managed to take in the sights of the great wall, although I'm sure he would have gone to the Badaling section as that is the more touristy bit. He was here on a 8 week public relations extravaganza with his wife. When asked to make a comment about the wall he said "I think that you would have to conclude that this is a great wall," I think that he was pretty on the mark with that one, and then to top it all off "and it had to be built by a great people." I'm not sure if he knew that Emperor Qin who ordered the wall to be built and also the construction of the terracotta warriors in Xian was a tyrannical megalomaniac or if he just didn't say so because it would have been bad for PR!

President Nixon and the "Week that changed the world"