The Great Wall of China Part Four - Vertigo and 'The Village'

The day started with a long walk to the bus (Mr Shin,we decided, had never driven a bus before, so parked wherever there was at least a 300 yard turning circle!). Here, as always, we stocked up on water for the trek. Jane quickly became profficient at filling her bladder (Others preferred fill theirs in the evenings!)

Eventually, we set of for the Gubeikou area, about one and a half hours away. By the time we arrived, we were all ready for the loo, but for most of us the smell proved too much and we waited to get out into the open air! Lorraine bravely took this photo of the 'facilities'!There were many Crouching Tigers and Hidden She-Wees on the Wall!

And so to the walk, and after a warm-up we were straight onto a steep climb.

As the Fun Bus pushed upwards, I had my first real attack of vertigo - one of many today. The rest of the team were amazing though, and as I had helped some of them on previous days, I was now the one who was being encouraged, supported and congratulated for overcoming my fears.

The narrow pathway snaked upwards along the ridge of the mountain - the views were fantastic whenever I could bring myself to look up from my boots!

This is where the walking poles came into their own - it was comforting to have something to hang on to! Thanks to Hi-Tec for generously providing these lifesavers! Andrew, Fiona and the team are demonstrating their effectiveness here:

The path was as little as 10" wide in places, with enough of a drop at either side to do some serious damage to your life expectancy if you fell off!

The Great Wall seems to go on forever (well it is 4,000km long!), and one benefit with this type of trek is that it's difficult to get lost..

Another hundred yards, another photo opportunity!

The climbing throughout the trek was unrelenting as we made our way through tower after tower. How on earth did they manage to build this incredible structure? It is said that around 3 million Chinese died in the process!

Getting into the towers was sometimes heartstoppingly difficult, with sheer drops to the side....

although some people like Jay seemed to take it all in their stride! The Fun Bus rolls on!

We stopped for lunch in one of the towers, where our ever-growing band of Mongolian 'Happy Ladies' sold us drinks, T-shirts, books, chopsticks etc. These local peasant farmer's wives offered a helping hand when required, but as one of them tried to pass me on a particularly narrow spot, I think I may have developed tourettes!

As we descended alongside the Wall, I wondered how they even managed to make all of the bricks! Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall' came to my head, and wouldn't go away for quite some time.

The architecture on this section contains many defence structures from the 7th to the 13th Centuries, as Gubeiko was the site of incessant warfare over many dynasties. For me, it was just too b****y steep to think about fighting!

As we trekked through the foothills, we came across this abandoned peasant house. Absolutely everything used in it's construction has been taken from the surrounding land....

.....apart from the newspaper used to cover the mud and straw walls!

A little further on, and still miles from civilisation, we had another surreal moment as we came across a local chap with his motorbike (he's not in this picture - that's Jason taking photos..... again!). He offered to sell us Coca Cola from a cardboard box, but as it was a bit hot, someone said - "If you had Ice Cream, that would be different"!!

At which point, he opened the polystyrene box full of nicely frozen lollies!!! 'You buy Ice Cream?' he said joyfully.

We bought the lot for about 50 Yuan (a fiver) and they were gorgeous! I tried to do a little "Profit & Loss" account in my head - he probably made a couple of quid for a day's waiting - but he made ten people VERY happy!

One of the Fun Bus is missing from this photo. Krishnan had joined a third 'breakaway' group, (soon to be called the "G-lue" - named because they walked between the other two groups and bonded us together in a strange way). Unfortunately, they became detatched from both the Power Rangers and the Fun Bus on the descent, and ended up being lost in the mountains for a couple of hours! Thank God for mobile phones and a superb Chinese phone network!

On arrival at our unfinished 'Village' accommodation, I was reminded of that famous TV series 'The Prisoner', although I never quite anticipated the 'luxurious' interior.

This was the view from my (broken) bedroom window

and as I sat down on the bed, I bruised my backside! The mattress was on a solid wooden base, and just 2" thick!

Worse was to come .... this is the pillow before I'd been to bed. It was filthy and full of dried beans!

The dark, dingy bathroom contained dirty towels and a shower that you could use while sitting on the loo - not recommended, though, as there was nowhere for the ice cold water to go so the floor flooded, and two of our group received nasty electric shocks from theirs. I confess that I didn't shower and slept in my silk liner with my head on my rucksack.

Dinner was the usual Chinese mix of indescribable meats of questionable origin, pondwater soup and sticky rice - which was always served at the end of the meal.

Could this have been beef? .... or maybe we were hallucinating at this point!