On Thursday we did the trip to the Great Wall, leaving at 7.30am with 7 of us in a mini van - a family from Latvia and a Canadian, David who was a bit younger than us We opted for the trip to Mutianyu which was 90km north of Beijing as not quite so many tourists go there, and especially with us leaving early.

This part of the wall dates back to the Ming dynasty (1368)and was built along the foundations of the wall built during the Northern Qi dynasty - AD550-77 The wall itself was actually started in 221-207 BC and took over 1000 years to build and is 7000 miles long.

Most of the wall is breaking away and has been restored in various parts for tourists This section of the wall is noted for its guard towers and its hilly setting We actually went by cable car to the wall and then spent 3 hours walking and climbing the wall.

Dave was determined to see part of the old wall that had not been restored so he and David climbed out of a watch tower and walked about 2km on a section of the old part We were due to meet our driver back at the car park at 12.30pm and we tobogganed a couple of kilometres down which was great fun.

Included in our trip was lunch which the seven of us sat down to in a nice restaurant with a revolving table with various Chinese dishes plus beer - a fabulous lunch Finally arrived back at the hostel at 4pm, rather pooped..