The Great Wall - beyond amazing

Friday 1 June

We get up at 5am, and leave at 6.00 pm on a tour to visit the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall of China.  We are promised breakfast and lunch; breakfast is a lukewarm McDonald's burger (not beef, probably pork), and a large cup of ice-cold Coke, neither of which whets our appetites.

We travel by minibus; the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall is over 3 hours away by road. During the course of the day we get talking to some of the passengers. There are 2 Australian brothers – one lives in Melbourne, one is a pilot with Cathay Pacific, living in Hong Kong. They are great fun to be with, and have the Aussie sense of humour. There's a honeymoon couple from London (I asked them if they were, when I spotted their shiny new rings), a young French woman hi-fi executive on a 10-day business trip from Paris (this is her only day off before flying home – she definitely made the right choice to spend this day at the Jinshanling Great Wall), and 2 young French students, one of whom speaks Mandarin (the most well- known Chinese language) as well as German and English, and the other speaks Russian , Spanish and English.

We arrive at the base of the mountain at about 9.30 am. We have the choice of climbing the mountain to reach the great wall, or going up by cable car. We are time-limited, as we have to be back at the restaurant for our lunch by 1.30 pm, and the minibus leaves to go back to the hostel at 2.00 pm. In any case we want to conserve our energy for climbing the wall, so we take the cable car.

It takes 17 minutes to travel up the mountain by cablecar; the hawkers who make their living selling water, snacks and trinkets to the tourists, were at the bottom of the mountain, and, like mountain goats, have managed to climb the mountainside to reach the top cable car station at the same time as we do. We don't want to buy anything, but they are difficult to shake off; they shadow us relentlessly, trying to make conversation, and flattering us in the hope of winning this psychological battle, breaking down our guard so that we will feel guilty if we don't buy from them. In the end I tell them that while we can't stop them following us, we aren't going to buy anything, as there is nothing we need. Eventually they scurry away muttering, and go off to hassle someone else. Perhaps I am being a bit hard, but our scamming experience on Monday has left a nasty taste in my mouth. Perhaps I will mellow as time goes on.

We are lucky, it's a cool day – just right for scrambling over a length of the great wall, and negotiating the sometimes very steep steps leading to the watchtowers , which are interspersed along the wall's length. Will my knees cope with this, I wonder? I've already told Reg to go on ahead if I climb too slowly, as you have to come back the same way. At one time you could walk/climb the wall from the Jinshanling section all the way to Simatai, but that's not possible at the moment, due to repair work being carried out. Let's hope, if they have to repair this section, the ancient feel of the wall is not lost in reconstruction. It is true that some sections of the wall are quite treacherous to climb, due to fallen and loose stonework.

Having said that, nothing can prepare you for the immense feeling of peace and well-being which wraps itself around you as you stand near the top of the mountain, over 2,100 feet up, breathing the clean air, and surveying the bush and tree covered mountainside, with the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall stretching far into the distance, like a necklace. This section of the wall separates China from Mongolia. We take lots of photos, but don't feel that the awe-inspiring scenery that surrounds us can be captured on film – not by my tiny Sony camera, anyway!

Reg says he is proud of me as we hike along a small section of the wall and ascend a few of the watchtowers, deciding that because of time, and my lack of agility, that we will turn around when we reach the “Flower Tower”. We'd been warned that some of the flights of steps are at an angle of 70 degrees, so I scramble up them frontwards, and descend them backwards! Often the steps have just crumbled away in places. We meet a group of hikers, passing us in ones and twos, mostly British but with a German amongst them - they are on a tour, and are walking 45 kilometres of the wall over a few days. Reg starts talking to the German about the European Cup (football). After a while I leave them to it, as we are now on our return hike, and I continue to negotiate my way back along the sometimes-broken pathways and staircases.

There are very few people up here, as most people choose to go to the refurbished Badaling section of the Great Wall. The crush and shove of the people-packed streets of Beijing, with its smog-filled air, seem a million miles away. The wall is a stunning sight, laced as it is over magnificent scenery; the view, the smells, the atmosphere, all make for an utterly amazing experience. Not being able to visit Tibet was a bitter disappointment; but I'm so glad I didn't miss out on this chance to survey the Great Wall.

We take the cable car back, and are in time for lunch, but it's lukewarm and not at all appetizing; the Great Wall experience was brilliant, but the catering on this tour leaves a lot to be desired. Reg and I enjoy an ice cream and chat with fellow passengers before the 3 hour journey back to our hostel.