14. Mu Tian Yu, the best section of The Great Wall of China

Up at seven o’clock this morning to have breakfast in time for a slightly earlier start of eight thirty to visit none other than The Great Wall of China today! Late yesterday there was some light rain and Max has suggested that this should clear away the smog today and leave us with clear views on what should be a bright and sunny day. Also, as the public holiday is now finished the traffic should be much lighter, as should be the case as far as sightseers are concerned up at the Great Wall.

After breakfast we head out to our coach on the dot of eight thirty, and Max’s first and second suggestions were spot on, the skies are clear blue with hardly a cloud in sight and the sun is shining brightly, making it comfortably warm. It also soon becomes obvious that the traffic is much lighter than it was over the holiday weekend, three out of three so far Max!

After just ninety minutes on the road our coach drops us off at the entrance to the Mu Tian Yu section of The Great Wall. It’s quite a trek up to the wall but we’ve been spoilt as our trip includes the use of the cable car up the mountain... happy days. As for Max’s fourth suggestion, less sightseers, he got a full house, this was the least amount of people we’d experienced anywhere; this is certainly a very good day so far!

It was amazing when we finally got up close and personal to the wall, stepping onto something that is over two thousand two hundred years old is quite special. The sheer magnitude of this structure takes your breath away, it literally follows the contours of the mountain, so is relatively level in places and extremely steep in others. There are beacon towers at regular intervals, and the soldiers used to send smoke signals from the roof of these, using mostly wolf dung for the fires as it apparently created the best smoke due to its fat content! The number of signals they set would tell the next beacon how many monguls were advancing, one fire for up to one hundred soldiers, two fires for up to five hundred soldiers and so on.

The weather was absolutely perfect for viewing as well as

photographing this stunning structure, we could see the wall disappearing over the distant horizon in both directions; luck was definitely on our side to have experienced such a perfect day for our visit to China’s amazing national monument.

We had two hours to explore and we needed that time as it was quite strenuous walking this rollercoaster of a wall. As I said earlier, in some places it was level or just a slight incline, while in others it was all you could do to walk up it as it was so steep. It must have been very hard for the soldiers who patrolled it, especially in the winter when it could snow very heavily. This was the highlight for both of us on this trip.

By now it was lunch time again and we needed to take the cable car back down the mountain, and it’s actually quite a

fast moving one, it seems slow to start but then suddenly takes off like The Hulk roller coaster at Islands of Adventure in Florida... well nearly. Oh yes, lunch... you could never guess where we were having our next meal up here by the Great Wall... Subway... yep, that’s what I said, Subway! Though we didn’t actually get a Subway meal, instead it was upstairs and the usual Chinese set up of four tables with their lazy susans!

The traffic was kind to us again on the way back to the hotel, so we had about two hours free time until we needed to be picked up for tonight’s dinner ahead of the Chinese Acrobatic Show we had afterwards. At the restaurant we were up on the third floor again, and joined by a smaller Mercury group for the first time. The show was only about a ninety second drive away from the restaurant, it would probably have been

quicker to walk it rather than all load in, then seconds later all get out again! The acrobats were fantastic, some of the things they did took your breath away, even making Elaine scream out once or twice at the stunts they performed.

Back to the hotel just after eight, so we strolled along to the Starbucks again for a coffee and a slice of chocolate cake! Met another couple doing the same, and again had Lynn, Amber, Carol & David knocking on the window as we were finishing our naughty little night time treat! We all had a quick look around the centre that Starbucks was a part of before making our way back to the hotel. This was interesting as there was a display of modern Chinese art throughout the whole centre, consisting of paintings, sculptures, models and statues; this was heavily loaded with horse subjects, my Chinese birth year!