The Road to China and Beauty of Beijing

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The trip into China was an interesting start to this leg we left Hanoi on the night train and immediately had a bit of a bad feeling when we met our room mates that were a french guy and a Dutch guy they appeared to have been drinking all day and carried there open beer onto the train with them...we were soon to learn that this isn't all they have brought on the train and that the dutch man is proud of giving his mate something to relax him and wasn't shy to snort some drugs up on the bed above me....we were greatful they only had tickets to the chinese boarder and secretly both hoped that they wouldn't get an onwards ticket so that would be the end of our room mates. The train is clean the beds are pretty comfy and we get a big thick duvet...there is a powerpoint so we can watch a movie happy days 😊 We started to watch how to train your dragon but soon Mike was asleep and I wasn't far behind so I packed everything away as we have the early hour stops for the borders....soon we are woken as we arrive at the vietnam border and we get all our stuff and my fantastic hubby carries my pack and I get all the small bags into the border control it really looks like an old railway station they are using the ticket area as the customs you take your passport up and they check through each one returning them as they see fit one at a time. Our Dutch cabin mate gets called into the back office and make tracks as we get our passport as it happens...we don't want to know!! Soon they two of them clamber back in and he explains he had overstayed knowingly and he had to pay $5US a day for doing so...soon the train is underway we don't settle in to much as we know that we well soon be arriving at the chinese border as it turns out it was faster than thought and we get there about 20 mins after leaving Vietnam, the carriage master comes through and collects all passports so that he can take them for processing and we jump off with bags in hand and go into the border control the bags go through the scanner and I go to the toilet on solid land while I can within 10mins we are back in our berths waiting on our passports....the other two eventually get there passports and head out to get tickets to carry on and we go to sleep luckily for us the boys never returned but our passports did with stamps and all 😊 We were now in China and for the next hours we sleep peacefully, we wake up to find it a little cooler here and only one hour from Nanning.....time passes pretty quickly! We arrive and head out to the main road to try and get some money not to hard we made our way to the Bank of China and they change some travellers cheques even though its Sunday and usually they can't we soon head back to the station hope of storing our stuff but alas they wont allow us in so we are stuck for hours with packs. We get some lunch and head over the road to the internet place....I was sure I had seen some big internet places before, but this is huge there must be at least 100-200 terminals in here and they have a fish tank running the length of the tables which are like a 0 shape with about 15 computers down the sides....even more strange is that they are allowed to smoke in here...they can smoke anywhere in China one thing I am not a fan of the day is long and slow and eventually we get on a bus to the airport...this is cheap (15Y = $2.80) and leaves from outside the hotel that across the road from the train station very convenient the next thing to hit is there is a big storm in beijing and our plane is delayed by 3 hours by the time we arrive in beijing get a taxi to the hotel and check in its the early hours of the morning and we have been travelling without a shower for way to long! Was so happy to have a good shower and a nice place to stay (we paid a bit more maybe I secretly knew -put it down to women's intuition that we would need a nice place to stay in Beijing.) So for us its freezing cold when we wake and go out side after midday to get some food even the doorman is wearing a trench coat and gloves and its the end of there winter....we head straight back up the room from more layers and head out to five spice sichuan around the corner which was lovely and with some sort of english descriptions we order from the menu and then try and explain rice we eventually get there and the food arrives and its A-m-azing yummy...I didn't know chinese could be so good...not a food type I have been a fan of before! We have a few quite days exploring, we go to the shopping square that is always in beijing ads and stuff by chance but didn't have the camera 😞 We ate some food from the streets and enjoyed it very much.
We eventually make to Tiananmen Square via the subway which is reasonably busy and there is a few people at Tiananmen as well but so far Beijing in nowhere near as busy,dirty or polluted as we expected and have found it to be a nice surprise. We head through to the Forbidden City and got Audio guides and within 4hours we decided that we have seen half and that was about all we could manage as it was a bit like sensory overload its a massive place I really don't think people realise just how big it really is! We head out on the other side and straight into the park ahead Jinhshan Park and walk up to the top of the hill and look back over the forbidden City and now you can see the middle of Beijing is really the forbidden city...Jinhshan is lovely and has an amazing view....totally worth the 15min walk up. When we get back down we head to Bahia Park this place is massive as well and we were going to come back but never made it when we arrived a lot of attractions were closing in an hour and we walked the white mount to have a look really what you see at the bottom is probably best as you can only walk around the outside of it however the park itself is stunning!

We checked out of our 4* hotel not without stealing all the goodies we could from the bathroom and moved to Hu Tong (culture) Inn which we sort of got lost going to as the hutongs aren't marked on maps so its hard to work out where they are and they meet etc we were luck to lovely chinese girls helped us by ringing the Hu Tong and then taking us there while speaking on the phone to them on the phone all they asked in return was a photo with me which I was more than happy to provide them with. That arvo we went out to a food area down the road from our last hotel that we had seen late the night before its a local area that full of lanterns was wonderful to walk through this beautifully lit place and see all the locals here eating out and enjoying themselves. We had a slightly overpriced and very spicy meals but it was nice all the same...we head back to the Hu Tong and on the way run into a couple from N.Z they are on holiday from Japan where they are teaching english we stand and talk for a while and then organise coffee the next day down the road. After coffee we end up hangout cruising the hu tongs and checked out the bell tower and performance it was so good...no use going here if you miss the performance but great even if it was quick we decided to head back to the hu tong and have a little rest and then we met up for dinner and in the end went back to Five Spice Sichuan which was great again the next day was the great wall so we all head back to have early nights.

6am we are up and getting ready to go on our great wall adventure we are picked up promptly and taken to our bus where we got the last two seats at the front and we settled in for the three hour journey on arriving at the Jinshaling part of the wall we decide to get the cable car up and walk from there this will be a 10k walk and the cable car was a nice way to start this part of the experience we soon reach the end of the ride and climb up the path to the great wall its an amazing sight from all directions even though it is much busier than we are expecting as there is a school group here we are in awe of the place we can see why its one of the seven wonders of the world as we climbed or myself clambered up and down the stairs for around 3 1/2 of the 4 hours we had to complete the journey along the wall the rest of the time was on sloping levels of the wall not much flat wall here but man its totally amazing...there is towers along the way some a restored and others are holding together naturally and some need some help but they are your counting points so you know how far along you are the only problem with this theory is that you are so busy taking in the surroundings and concentrating on how to get up to the them that you forget to count them as you go along...The structure here is crazy the stairs are all different sizes and heights and I found them really hard when they were big they were like 50+cm high and the steepest ones there I had to put the camera away so I couldn't get any photos I needed hands and feet to climb this bit as it was one of the highest parts of the wall as well and I am usually good with heights unless there is not much the sides which there was times where the wall was all broken and nothing much on the side to hold on to so I focused on using the step above with my hands...so right foot and right hand same time up a step and then left it was a good method and worked well for me. We finished with Simitai part of the walk being more untouched and having less restoration done meant in places you have to walk on the ground surrounding what is left of the wall....I must say when we could see the bridge in the distance we did get a little excited that we were almost at the end however it would be a long walk to get to there even though it was visible in the distance.....Just as that came into view so did one little peak in the distance behind the amazing hills of the Himalayan mountains with snow still blessing the slopes it was a surreal moment I wondered how many others had seen in and how many had rushed so much that they had missed it. We eventually made it to the little dodgy walk down the clay hill (glad it was a dry day!) to the metal stairs going down to a spring bridge this bridge is big and perched over a lovely valley surrounded by the great wall made for another inspiring view. Once we crossed the bridge we could see how close we were but everyone kept telling me and I am like I can bloody see it but its not getting here fast enough this part is well now restored wall and takes you to the path or zip line down....we made our way up and stopped at the shop and brought a t-shirt each matching of course haha that we conquered the great wall haha. People that know us well will not be surprised to hear that Mike walked down and zipped it was lovely over the water looking back at the amazing wall that we were so lucky to have suffered,endured and appreciated walking along...I waited for the little boat over to the finishing point where Mike was waiting for me and we soon we went to have the inclusive lunch (crap don't do it) Soon we are back on the bus home and the day is a blur and the great wall is another tick on our list. We made it back at about 6.45 had a shower and a rest then went out for tea at a place down the hu tong opposite ours the place was called Yunnan Vegetables (Nan luo guxiang) oh my goodness this was soooo good we couldn't decide what to order so as usual ordered like four dishes and had to ask to have the rest take away when we left.it was lovely.

The next day the legs were a little slugish we woke had a shower and head down the road to get some breakfast and we discover that Megan and Nathan are just starting theres so we join them they are off to the markets with some others they met on the tour at the great wall the day before there were on a different tour to us (they booked through the beijing backpackers international where they were staying) we were going to the markets but the silk market...we went our seperate ways...we went and caught the subway and got off straight into the markets this place is manic its like six stories high and just walking through the shoes and bags section is out of control with everyone in your face wanting you to look at there shop...Mike ended up finding some levi 501's and brought them for less than 1/3 of the price she started out wanting $200 and he paid just $60 almost 1/3 good man....I got us a couple of USB's for the computer one was a fake and only held 2GB instead of 8GB but oh well no one would take responsibility so to bad and the other one got elsewhere and I was talking to the girl for ages and showing her photos and they were the only store in there location in the morning I took back the one she sold me as it wasn't opening back up what it was storing....so greatful they looked after me. I also had a pair of script glasses made as well got them for a good price she wanted $200 and I got them for $56 they are lovely burberry frames 😊 The other thing that I happen to lose in moving was the sunnies that Mike got me in Vietnam $3 so we got me some new ones they are oakley fakes with real polaroid lenses they cost about $25...in the morning when we did go back to change the usb we went to the dvd shop and when we were looking at the ones in the shop the girl came over and asked dvd??? We were like yes soon we were ushered out the back to a little room to shop for dvd's through two doors and one inside says knock on door when you want to leave....we guess the copy dvd's aren't supposed to be sold here hehe but we picked up a few good movies and we are happy campers...so all and all a good shopping experience even if it was a crazy, crazy place you must go here and experience it!

Tonight we leave for Xian so we get some food and head back to the hotel and make our way to the train station this place is massive and there is no reason to take food you can get anything you want at the station its mental however we do say take enough cold water with you as you can get boiling water on the train but not cold water....not even off the food cart the man reason we know this is because while we were waiting for the train I was feeling increasingly bad and was drinking water like it was going out of fashion then on the train couldn't get anymore cold 😞 The train was nice, clean and the toilets were great I was not well so didn't enjoy the trip but I think I may have slept well if I was....only thing was that there is no powerpoints in this train so MIke couldn't watch a movie I was to sick and just wanted to go to sleep but was going through the fever stages with a mass headache that nothing would make it go away.

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