Beijing - Day 5

On Day 4 we arranged the the driver from the Beijing office to drive us out to the Great Wall. The easy to reach parts of the wall are very touristy so we decided to be a bit more adventurous. Plan A was to go to Simatai and then to walk for about 4 hours to get to Jinshanling. However we found out the night before that the wall at Simatai had been closed. Apparently this is a ploy by the Chinese Government to pursuade the locals to sell out to the government so that can build a Disney style Great Wall tourist destination.

We decided to go to Xizhazi village instead and then walk 5 hours to Mutianyu. So we instructed the driver via Johnson in the office. We set off at 0830 as planned and about 2 hours later we arrived at a small village high up in the hills with no sign of the wall. The driver talked to some local guys and then after a number of phones calls to the office it transpired that the driver had no idea where Xizhazi village was! Still he now seemed to know where it was so we set off again with the promise of 30-40 minutes before we get to the correct village. This is where the fun started. 2.5 hours later after numerous stops to ask locals, both kids being sick because the road was so windy, repeated phone calls to the office to translate between us and the driver we arrived at Xizhazi. Nightmare.

By the time we arrived we only had 4 hours to night fall and the walk was five hours. We had no choice but to accept that we could only walk for a couple of hours and then we would have to turn around and come back. To add to this the cloud was very low so the wall was shrouded in thick mist.

However, in the evening the day got a bit better! Despite a 2 hour journey back into Beijing (by the poor driver!) we were taken by Johnson to a renowned peking duck restaurant - very posh - and the kids loved the duck (true Macken stylee we were very underdressed, actually still in muddy boots and Ronhills!) Johnson ordered all the best stuff, and we had these traditional sweet things for starters, which was wierd by tasty, then the duck, then delicious stringy toffee apples for pud!