BEIJING
bad but everything is very touristy orientated, and you get people who just follow you and tell you about the place but basically all they are after is you giving them money - being a westerner you are a prime target for them and again they don’t believe in personal space, they are just right in your face hassling you, its really hard cause you feel guilty cause you have loads of money compared to them but on the other hand you don’t want someone right in your face hassling you, you can’t be polite you just have to ignore them and walk away. There is no let up with these people either, there are people selling all sorts of tourist crap on all parts of the wall, because the floor of the wall is very uneven they think they are helping you by grabbing your arm and telling you to be-careful but to be honest I just wished they bugger off and leave me alone! When we got to half way on our walk the lady and man that had been following us (even though we tried to get rid of them but they just kept on coming
back for more) started asking personal questions and then they tell you about their lives how they are farmers have children etc etc and then when they realise you aren’t going to give them money they start getting arsy with you, its not really a nice situation. It really is a sort of aggressive begging which leaves you feeling bad, Noah had mentioned this kind of behaviour when he was living in South East Asia and he was saying that if you give then it just kind of adds fuel to the fire which in turn just escalates the problem and that your far better off giving to a charity or something similar.

The wall on the other hand was quite strenuous it was very hilly and had some quite ruff terrain, I don’t think 3 weeks on and off trains was the best training for walks of this nature! Saw some awesome views and surprise surprise got loads of photos! At the finish of our walk there was a death