Great Wall

We left a rainy Beijing yesterday morning for a 2 hour journey into the countryside to the Red Capital Ranch, our eco lodge right in amongst the Great Wall of China. As we arrived, there was a layer of mist everywhere in the valley and the whole place looked magical. Looking up to the mountains above we saw watchtowers of the Great Wall in all directions - one count along a single section of wall totalled 13 towers! We can even see a couple from our bed! A river runs through the 'Ranch', with some of the oldest parts of the wall (266 BC apparently - the time of China's first emperor) submerged in it. The hotel itself is beautiful - the rooms are individual houses made from wooden beams and pillars from ancient courtyard homes demolished during the 'clean-up' of Beijing for the 2008 Olympics (nice), mixed with grey stone and draped fabrics from Tibet. They have done their best to make all the buildings blend into their surroundings rather than dominate them and being tree-huggers at heart, it is right up our street! Each room has individual features, ours (incidentally, called 'Wind' - insert gag here) has a carved stone unicorn above the bed, our 'protector spirit', dating to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). We're just to the north of the Wall here so officially we're in Manchuria and not China.

Yesterday the rain cleared a little in the afternoon so we had a gentle walk up one section of the wall - just 4 or 5 towers along. The views are breathtaking and we took thousands of photos, most of which will be rubbish cos the light was so bad but we had to attempt to capture the beauty somehow!

After our small walk we did some large snoozing (still not quite fighting fitness) and then had a delicious dinner of trout, venison (George, obviously) and various exciting vegetable dishes. The food here is really delicious and mercifully free of MSG and grease. We were invited to see some traditional Tibetan dancing after dinner and, not really feeling that we could refuse, we smiled and nodded and enthusiastically agreed.

The staff here are mostly Tibetan - as part of the eco-ness they  are all being trained under their 'affirmative action' programme. They are really very sweet but quite shy so we were surprised that they seemed so keen and enthusiastic in putting on a show for a couple of Western tourists. At one point one guy even sang for us - wireless mic and all - and he was really going for it! And lo and behold they had us up and 'dancing' with them in no time. No surprise that our skill in following the steps was somewhat limited and no surprise either that it wasn't long before old snakehips was ignoring the steps and 'giving it some' in his own unique style. This of course caused much hilarity amongst the Tibetans who, up until then, had been quite straightfaced about the whole thing! Eventually we pleaded tiredness and headed off to our little Manchurian style house for a BIG sleep. And it was awesome.