The Great Wall

The weather forecast is not sure for today, heavy rain or Sun.... When we waked up, it was foggy. So, for the security bought we two umbrella's. The guy asked thirthy Yuan, but after a while we had them both for ¥ 20 (Yuan) that's about € 1,42 for one umbrella, and of cours the Made in China quality! We were prepared for the day.
Our driver was exact on time. There was a lot traffic, but without traffic jams.
Two hours later were we in the valley by the Great Wall. The Great Wall is build from about 400 BC, the construction of the biggest part of the wall took 200 years. The mountains are in the North of China about 1500 m high. The wall is here 5 km long, all the stones were brought upstairs by hand. A very heavy job. The Chinese people call the Wall also the biggest cemetery in the world. Many people died and they put them in the Wall, that was the easiest way to loos the corps.

From the parking was it 5 minutes to the tramway, an cable tram to the top of one of the mountains.
Impressing, what a construction, every five hundred meter is an security post and every kilometre a watchtower. When there was an enemy located by a soldier on a watchtower, than was there a soldier running to the next security post, so knew every one very fast that, par example Ginggis Khaan, was seen.

We walked about six kilometre to the west side on the Wall. It was very heavy. When we were back, I looked on my phone, to the healthy App. Result: we made 9.971 steps but we climd 65 floors! And that by 37 degrees with a little bit Sun. Than can you understand how broken (and wet) we were.....
We were very happy that is was not raining.

At three o'clock were we back by the hotel, we took first a small lunch and after that a nice douche.
After that all we took a electric ricksha, fast and clean, to the main boulevard from Beijing. What we, Europeans, thinking is that Beijing the city is from the million bicycles, now, that was fifteen years ago. Its now the city from normal luxury cars, and many electric cars, scooters and bikes. They do everything to clean the air from this city with 24 million habitants. The public transport is also electric.

Also is the last 15 years the mentality changed. They are now also cleaner in the streets, no paper or other trash on the ground. You see the people using the trash cans in the street.

We started this day about 200 years before Christ, but when we arrived in the main street, we were directly in 2015 after Christ. What a beautiful and modern boulevard is that. All the famous marks are there. From Longlines till Hermes, but also Zara and H&M, a super modern centre. One of the street to the boulevard is the "food"street. Here you can buy everything what a Chinese eat, from beautiful fruit till grilled Fish, from nice Pekin-ducks till scorpions or big spiders. We made some photos from them. Every insect is there, some are still living. Enjoy it!

We took a simple diner in the street with a bottle of beer, after seeing all that nice food was this enough for us.

The way back was a bit complicated. The taxi driver did n't know were our hotel was, so, we were talking with the driver. Some other people saw that, also a ricksha driver. He knew the hotel and could bring us for ¥ 50, we want the trip for ¥ 20 and no more. A guy, who was a witness, told us: "take the bus, it's only ¥ 10. So we say thanks to him and we crossed the street for the bus. While waiting for the bus came the ricksha again and he told us that ¥ 20 was okay, so we were fast back in the hotel.

It is now 21h50, and I was looking on the health app on my phone, we walked today 17.160 steps ! Enough for a whole week, I think we sleep well this night.