Today Wei offered to take us to the next destination, the Simatai section of the Great Wall. It took a two hour bus and another hour in a cramped taxi (normal) to arrive there (taxi ride roughly 65km, cost of taxi 100 yuan or about $14). The Simatai section of the Wall is much less visited than the more famous Badaling and Mutianyu sections, which are swarmed by tourists and vendors. One reason may be because it's more exercise than the average tourist is interested in. There's a steep climb if you want to start at the top and walk down, otherwise plan on climbing a few thousand irregular steps that are almost as steep as the mountainside. Looks like they picked the hardest place for an army to cross, and to build a wall, and slapped one down anyway.

On the other hand, the views are much better at Simatai and it's in a more original condition. Some sections you have to skirt around as they're not safe enough to use.

This trip started out as my third solo trip to China (fourth trip total). By six weeks out, I still hadn't decided where I was going, but chances were good it would be either Tibet (far west) or Xinjiang (far northwest). However, right before 'pull the trigger' time, Gopsdragon decided he wanted to tag along. Later, my brother Cody also decided to go. Gopsdragon needed the 'budget trip' to China though, trying to pin me down to $2000, which pretty much eliminated either of my 'far end of China' scenarios. Further, if you're a China virgin you have to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, otherwise why bother. But that was the extent of my compromising to cover old ground, anything else had to be new to all of us.