Josh and Mia on The Great Wall

Impossible to comprehend the scale of this thing until you walk on it (Josh and Mia the only two people visible on it grinding their way up in the pic above give some idea of the dimensions) - gruelling stuff - distances and gradients are massively deceptive - dispite the temperature, a chilly -4 degrees ambient with a wicked wind driving the experienced way down - we ended up wanting to strip down to shirt-sleeves - which Mia did for a while (brrrr) - and on this section we were reduced to using all fours. 

Apparently the whole project was started by the Chinese in the 7th Century BC, with different dynasties keeping the project rolling through the centuries (an amazing comittment).  Josh read that the wall as a whole is over 6000kms long (Hong Kong to South Africa is 10000kms - so quite a feat). 

We had walked from beyond the point visible in the top right of this pic).

The pic below is taken from the top of the furthest tower we were willing to climb to (a "new" one, built in 1400) and there was an old Chinese battleaxe selling Snickers bars, bottles of water, Coke, (as well as Chinese Red Bull and beer for the clinically insane) at exorbitant prices (three chocolate bars, a coke, and two bottles of water = RMB135 (R150) - which we were more than happy to pay, particularly since lugging them up there seemed to make the price fair) - but everything turned out to be frozen solid.  Frozen Snickers taste great however.

On the way back to the cable way that mercifully takes you up to the wall the sun was behind us so the lovely muted winter colours were easier to capture.  Nice pic of Josh and Mia below - close to the last tower before the cable-way (and I think pretty exhausted).

The final pic below is of the landscape around - super rugged and forbidding.  People who wanted to pick fights with the Chinese would have had to cross these mountains first, before arriving at the fortifications themselves.  Apparently with some of the Chinese emperors you did this very much at your peril, because some of them were fond of sending their captured enemies off to the wall to work until they died; then their bodies were dumped into the wall itself and built over - so while you are cussing away as you slave along it, you can be mindful of the souls of the departed who built it smiling up at you enjoying the last laugh. In the top right is an old piece of the wall, that at some point was abandoned and a new section was built around.