On 12th August, the intention had been to head first thing for the Great Wall of China, but plans changed around a little, and I ended up going to the Mao Zedong mausoleum instead. I queued for a while and then filed past the great embalmed leader, along with many hushed and reverent Chinese tourists. I had to admit Chairman Mao looked a little the worse for wear – the years have not been kind to him since he died!

Then I made a quick visit to the Friendship Store to get some western goodies to take as presents to my Czech friends, and headed back to the hotel. The 3 Spaniards were keen to try to get to the Great Wall in the afternoon – there was supposedly a train, but when we reached the station we heard the dreaded words “méiyŏu” repeated several times, so we gave up and headed back to the hotel.

I started getting an unpleasant gnawing feeling that my “lap of planet Earth” is all too rapidly drawing to a close. Xiahe and now Beijing (to some extent) will end up being the last time that I can feel the lack of any time constraint, and the ability to just relax in a place until I get bored and want to move on. From 14th August I’m going to be subjected to a regimented timetable for a week, and though I can linger in Eastern Europe for perhaps a week or 10 days more, I will be using up money faster there and will inevitably be back in the UK all too soon…

Since washing clothes on the train won’t be easy, I decided to get everything washed by the Qiao Yuan hotel washing service (cheaper than Long Tan). I found Coen and Ellen there and had dinner with them. I found out more about how to get the Great Wall by taxi, and then headed back to Long Tan on the normal number 106 trolley bus. I was getting over confident about these and when it braked suddenly I lost my balance and hit the floor very hard. People looked down at me curiously… I tried not to think about the fact that people spit on the floor of trolley buses as much as anywhere else….

At Long Tan I briefed the Spaniards about what I had learnt about getting to the Great Wall of China, and then got chatting to Ferdie (from the Soviet Embassy queue) and met 2 British girls Alison and Charlotte. All 3 will, like me, be leaving for Moscow on Wednesday’s train.

The 3 Spaniards and I were up at 7 am – this was my last chance to see the Wall – or anything else in China for that matter. We cycled to Qiao Yuan and were able to get a taxi for about $15 – not too bad when split 4 ways. It was not, however, a particularly comfortable taxi. We reached Badaling – the easiest part of the wall to get to from Beijing, and a place where major restauration has been done.

We piled out of the little taxi, and hiked up to the wall. There were a lot of people around – mostly Chinese tourists – but they were lazy and didn’t walk more than 500 metres along the wall! The 4 of us kept walking and soon found the section ahead of us to be deserted…

The Spaniards were determined that my Spanish was better than their English, and so the whole day was spent talking in Spanish – it seemed a little incongruous to be advancing my Spanish on the Great Wall of China.

The Chinese, of course, don’t call it the Great Wall of China. They call it the “The Thousand Li Wall” because that is how long it is. One Li is now defined as 500 metres, so it is the “5000 km Wall”.

Before long we reached the end of the restored section. We had left the rest of the tourists a long way behind, and we felt very isolated and insignificant as we stood on a raised tower, tracing the ancient wall snaking it’s way over hills and valleys into the hazy distance. I tried to imaging the effort required to build 5000 km of this, without mechanical tools, but I found it impossible.

The unrestored section is harder to walk along, and isn’t as pretty, but it is still a formidable barrier.

Since I was with 3 Spaniards, we’d had lunch, and were tired, the immediate plan rapidly centred around having a siesta. Luckily I agreed it was a great idea. It was, in any case, warm, quiet, and very peaceful for a snooze up on the wall.

Later we found our taxi and within 90 minutes we were approaching the centre of Beijing. We were all hungry again, so stopped off for noodles before heading back to the Long Tan hotel. I went to buy some last minute supplies for the train – alcohol is supposedly essential, since many people have reported that the Trans Siberian is something of a “party on rails”.

After a final trolley bus trip down to the Qiao Yuan hotel, to socialise with the rest of my known fellow passengers on next day’s train, it was time to head back and pack. I was rather late back so this had to be done quietly for the benefit of my roommates…