Yeshi took us to a Tibetan horse racing festival in Shangri-La – I found it very interesting that it was just a trotting race because I’m used to watching horses gallop. This horse race happens once per year. It was very colourful but there was so much rubbish everywhere, and loads of army people

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The Back Roads of China trip with Yeshi, Kham and Alex was great – Yeshi liked telling us stories about the places we visited and especially how high we were above sea level. Kham liked driving I think because he drove safely and never got angry. We would always find him with a happy face instead of an angry face. Alex was fun at the stone forest – we were all over him. It was an ace two weeks.

My favourite place in China was the Great Wall, Shuhe and Xian. My favourite place we stayed was the Maple Leaf Guest-house in Shuhe because there was good WIFI so i could play ‘Words with friends’ and there was great street food there.

Also the Hatang Guest-House in Xian because I could play pool.

Tianeman Square Tianeman Square was fascinating. I wanted to know the answers to so many questions about the happenings in 1989 at the square. I think more than 200 people died (but we’ll never be able to tell the real amount because its a big secret) and there are still even people in jail from then.

Mama and Baba were telling us that there was a man stops the tanks by standing in front of them. He must’ve been a very brave man. I would like to see a photo of him. There was lots of people at the square and lots of security cameras everywhere. It was quite an interesting place.

The Great Wall of China – We went walking the Great Wall. Some other travellers came with us – there were two English girls called Hayley and Isabelle, two Americans called Elizabeth and Melanie and a French Canadian called Sam. We drove far from Beijing and then all had an ice-cream for extra energy before our walk. We walked through forest to the first tower which we went up on – there were little stairs near each tower on the Beijing side of the wall but not on the other side because you didn’t want the enemies to be able to get up.

This part of the wall that we went to is 600 years old. She. We got to the third tower there was a ladder to the top of the tower and we climbed – I was worried that the ladder was going to collapse cause the sticks were very thin sometimes and they moved a bit – but I did it! We were walking pretty fast and soon we got to our destination. After we set up our tents we did another walk further still.

The next tower had a ladder that was even harder and big steps but I did it by myself and was proud of myself. We walked until the far tower and then we got there we saw that after that the Great Wall was broken and crumbly so it was pretty dangerous to go further. The sunset was beautiful over the mountains.

Then we started to go back and have dinner but we had to bring our own because we were far from any villages. In the morning I woke up pretty early and found Baba awake – he said that it was light from 3.30am. I went for a walk by myself and climbed up another ladder. Sam and the four girls slept in but once we all got up we started to take down the tents, had brekky and started on our way back to Beijing. On the steep hills going down I use day quad muscles a lot more but I found that my hamstrings were really sore by the end. We sat with the other travellers on the way back and gave them our address and emails. I hope they come to visit us one day.

By Tobes