After leaving Ulanbaatar and spending a night on the train we arrived to Beijing on friday at noon...We wanted to go to Leo Hostel but had no idea where it was or how to get there... It was very warm outside when we arrived so as we were sweating like pigs and trying to get through the crowds we tried to find our way to the hostel... It wasn't as easy as we thought but after three and a half hours dealing with taxis and tourist information we got there, exhausted and tired... The first three days went by as we experienced the nightlife in Beijing, visited the Silk Market and the Forbidden City... On Monday we left to Jinshanling (a place on the Great Wall) and got our first experiences of the public transportation in China... We didn't want to take a tour or a guide and go to the touristic places, so we decided to go on a 10,5km hike on the Great Wall, from Jinshanling to Simatai. That was probably the most amazing experience so far here in China. After the first kilometer we didn't see any other people on our way to Simatai. That part of the wall isn't reconstructed or renewed so at some times it was really difficult to walk there. Jumping down from towers and crawling up on the hills was really exhausting but an unforgettable experience! We really got the feeling of walking on something very old and the views were amazing! We could hear the hum of the mountains while taking our time just enjoying the peaceful atmosphere instead of being pushed around by samsonite tourists :)
The feeling we got, as we put the loudspeakers on and danced to the beat of "Tshwalaye" on the Great Wall, can't be put into words! And as walking on the edge of the wall listening to "Matisyahu-time of your song" we just thought that this is life! Can't even describe the feeling I had at that time! We also completed one mission on our bucket list which was: "walk on your hands on The Great Wall of China". It wasn't as easy as we thought but after several tries all of us managed to balance on our hands and even get a picture of it!
Finally after more than five hours we arrived to Simatai. We crossed a huge suspension bridge and found the owner of the guesthouse waiting for us. "Where you from? -Finland. "Oohh, you want cold beer now?" Just what we wanted to hear! The evening went by as we enjoyed beer and traditional chinese food at the guesthouse, with only two other australian travellers. After getting a good sleep on the Kang (hard chinese bed) we woke up around 3am to see the sunrise. We struggled 6 towers up on a hill, even though my feet could barely carry me, not forgetting about the hike the day before. Mat and Miki carried on another four towers higher and higher but sadly none of us saw the sunrise because of the bad weather...
Later on we headed off back to Leo Hostel where we spent one more night.. Next day we were supposed to go to Cuandixia, a chillout village on the outskirts of Beijing but made a spontanious descision to leave the capital for good. We didn't get traintickets to Qingdao on such short notice but as we already were at the trainstation with all our belongings we took last minute tickets to Xi'an. "Standing tickets" didn't sound so bad but actually it turned out our expectations were completely wrong. It was a "normal" train with seats and a narrow hallway and we had to find a place to stand for 14 hours. This could have been possible, if not the whole population of China had been on the same train! Seriously, the toilet was the only place with reasonable space! Luckily we found a patch on the floor behind the kitchen where we met a chinese guy, Shao. 14 hours felt like forever... Finally at 5am we arrived to Xi'an and Shao helped us to find a place to sleep because all the hostels were full.