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Off to Beijing
Finally I am on the 4th trip of my travels. I have found the blogs invaluable in keeping friends and relatives updated on my status (a lot are worried of my age. I have looked through my blogs, sometimes just for revisiting the memories and osmetimes to answer a help query on Tripadvisor for which I had forgotten the details. So, I have decided to continue with the blogs. Sorry to anybody finding it tedious and boring.
Thankam's return from India signaled that I can be on my way at last. Flew from Dublin with Etihad Airlines yesterday morning. The flights to Abu Dhabi and onward to Beijing was very pleasant as both had plenty of spare room to relax and stretch legs. Flying over the Hindukush the air got very turbulent and we had a few minutes of a real bumpy ride. When I landed in Beijing at 0930hrs the whole day’s flight was taking its toll and in spite of the excitement of being in China for the first time l was very tired.
With the earthquake in Nepal the main part of the trip had to be abandoned and what was left had to be
rearranged. The last few days had been hectic with rearranging itinerary, cancelling booking and making new ones. When one flight is OK, just to find that the next connection is unmanageable. The only alternative is to go the through travel agents. The cancellation of flights incurred some losses and booking new flights this close to travel of course was expensive.
The changes meant, no Friendship Highway, no Everest Base Camp, no Kathmandu and no Delhi or Rajasthan. It is indeed nothing compared to conditions in Nepal where the death toll is rising close to 10,000 mark already with total distruction all around. The Friendship Highway is closed by the Chinese government for use by aid convoys and EBC is closed at least until July. Having said that I still have the sights of Beijing and the trek on the Great Wall, the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an and the city of Xi'an itself, Lhasa city and a tour into the remote areas of Tibet. I can't complain. It only dawned on me only later, that as per my original plan my trip was to start on 1st April and I would have just made it to Nepal at the time of
the earthquake. But Thankam's trip to India changed all that, I could not leave home until she got back.
The fact that Tessa and Ryan was in China was a great help. She was so much worried about her old man in China on his own that specific instructions were given to me as to how to get to the hotel from the airport etc. I was asked to get the hotel name printed out in Chinese along with the hotels phone number. As nobody spoke anything other than Mandarin here it was quite useful. Further, my driver lost his way and we had to ring the hotel to direct him. On the way one can see that even the poor “workers party” have not lost the extravagance of the Ming Emperors. Even the toll bridge is made with huge carved motifs and aptly coloured. This probably was done for the show piece Olympics.
Xiao Alley Courtyard Hotel was a large old house with a beautiful courtyard in the center. The staff was very helpful, the room clean and comfortable.On the photo the bed is on the right side, the other one is spare. After lunch I took a walk around the surrounding narrow streets ( Hutongs as the small side streets are called) and managed to get some cash from the dispenser on the main street as well. Being a capital city the hotel was relatively expensive and did stretch my budget a bit. But Tessa wanted to me to stay in a nice place.
As for planning for the next day decided to go on a city tour with all 4 major attractions arranged booked through the hotel. It just seemed the right one to take. Tessa and Ryan were Guilin and was meant to get back the late tomorrow and we would plan the next few days after that.
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