Super thin mattresses and a bloody big wall

---

---

Day 7. First week of or tour has been great, towards this end of it. We arrived in Beijing airport on the Sunday morning having met people on the plane who were starting there trip also so we all jumped on the bus together and promptly got into a argument with our first hostel as sta hadn't given us a payment voucher so after standing in reception and kicking off a bit we were in, to a small box room with the thinnest mattress you will have ever seen we stayed two days and at the end we folded it in half to form a single.. Yes folded. So with painful hips we made our way to the second hostel wish had a boiler or something behind our wall so as you can imagine the room was a sauna and the experience wasn't helped buy the guy hocking up right outside our door all nite and i mean all nite.. Come 9 we ran as far and as fast from the place as we could.

You seem to find the people in Beijing do few strange things from spitting all the time (its normal here) to baby's and little kids with no ass on there pants for quick scwotting..
You have to give it to then though the streets are spotless as people get paid to collect rubbish.. They also have loads of really huge buildings which we never seem to see people actually using.

We did the big sites and the Forbidden City is fantastic as is Tinamen Sq, we also hiked along the great wall the day before last (for 10 kilometers) eves still in bed recovering as she pulled a muscle in her calf we think, some of it is really really steep, although eve had some 70 od yr old woman/mountain goat practically dragging her up.. But the views from the top are mind blowing...

Im writing from our new hostel in Xi-an, after getting the night train and we seem to be getting nicer and nicer hostels as we progress this one has a really modern wetroom.. This place also seems to be able to arrange a lot of tours and stuff (pandas, the warrior's ect) so we should have a good time here plus the hostels cheaper about 10 pound a night which is a bonus... pics to follow im afraid the hostel has no card reader ---> to kodak !

---