Woke up around 6 am this morning to pack up and get ready to head to the Wall.  Had some breakfast – fried egg, toast, fried rice, a steamed bun, sausages, fried potatoes and some kind of cake thing.  Checked out and we boarded the bus to take us to Jiankou, with a stop at the Summer Palace.

Lots of room on the bus so pretty comfortable even though the traffic was bad.  Arrived at the Summer Palace and toured around, including riding the dragon boat across the lake.  A nice complex with a number of different areas.  We walked up the hill and saw the mock up of the old Water Town, which was built to show the emperor how happy and well everyone lived.  A lot of tourists at the Summer Palace so we weren’t there too long.  The walk up the hill was quite nice as the path was lined with lovely flowering trees.

After the Summer Palace we boarded the bus for the 2.5 or 3 hour drive to Jiankou where we are staying.  According to our guide, Jerry, the various sections of the Wall are 22119 km in total, with the western most parts near Afghanistan, the northern in Russia, the southern in Beijing and the eastern in North Korea.  It was built between the 2nd or 3rd century BC and the 16th century.
We arrived at our homestay around 1:30 and had some lunch, which was a variety of dishes.    The homestay is pretty simple but the rooms have their own “bathroom” and a great view of the wall.

After lunch we got ready to walk up to the wall.  Today’s hike time would only be about three hours.  After a climb up the hills we arrived at the wall to a section referred to as the “Spiderman” wall.  

There was an option to walk around or go up but I decided to go up.   It was actually easier than I thought – there were only a couple of spots where I felt concerned if I were to fall backwards.   Made it up to the top and then wandered along they wall for a while.   

Went down a few sketchy sections and got to an area where I thought we were going to leave the wall as the way forward seemed to have collapsed.   After a break though, we carried on!  We didn’t have to attempted the collapsed bit but instead had to “rock climb” along the outside!  I was thinking the “Spiderman” section didn’t look so bad.   There was also no option to go around. 

Surprisingly though I managed to make it up fairly effortlessly.  We hiked a bit further along the wall before heading down and back towards the homestay.
Had a nice cool beer to relax and then a hotel shower before dinner.   Another pile of dishes for dinner and ready for bed after a long day.