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Monk in Forbidden City
I thought they led a humble life - his brand new Canon said otherwise! Arrived in Beijing, coming through the Great Wall at Badaling near the Mongolian border. There was great excitement on the carriage as all the Chinese train attendants took great delight in running into each of our cabins to let us know when we would see different parts of the Wall.
Beijing train station was mental, so thankfully got picked up by the hostel - Leo Hostel highly recommended - we were staying in an old Bejing district (hutong) with winding streets, and dodgy food stalls all the way down.
Had a few beers with a couple of Americans, John and Kevin, who were in China on busines but staying in a hostel for the craic. The own a company specialising in, among other things, travel hammocks (www.thetravelhammock.com) and gave us some good recommendations on where to stop in SE Asia.
Easter Sunday, headed off on a tour to the Great Wall - the hostel had a special "Secret Wall" tour to an area with the old original wall that hasn't been restored, and we were the only tourists on that part of the wall. Fantastic views into the mountains, and it was a fairly rough and ready hike,
DaZhanLu Hutong
Our hostel was "just beside the big Chinese sign"... with our 68yr old guide (nicknamed Frank for the day) setting a very fast pace over crumbling walls and very steep mountainside (where Thomas duely managed to fall off the battlements onto his ass).
Weather here in Beijing is great.. first place on the trip with temperatures above 0, and of course I managed to get sunburnt in only 15degree celsius weather! Suncream here is hard to find, and ended up paying a fortune for Nivea Factor 20 which I doubt will do me very good the further south I go, however beggars can't be choosers.
Being a Westerner you do get mobbed here a little by the locals, some just wanting to practice their English, others trying to bring you to their Art Gallery to try to flog some Chinese Calligraphy on you, and finally some just who want their photograph taken with a Westerner. Hilarious.
All the children under 5 here wear split trousers so that should the call of nature arise, they just squat and.. release. Amazing. On the street, on Tiananmen Square at the lowering of the flag, no place too public, no area sacrosanct! Another different thing, there is very little public
Street Pancakes
Tasted good, and no nasty "side effects" seating here in China - everyone just squats when they are congregating to talk, or wait, or read. One other weird thing was the outdoor gyms painted to look like a playground, whereby local people, fully dressed in their work suits, would be up on a brightly coloured skimachine-effort, or lifting weights. Bizarre.
After a hectic runaround the local "ripoff shops" where John and Kevin were hounded by local women flogging cheap ankle socks and ended up buying about 20 pairs each, we retired to "Catherines Courtyard Love Pub", a fine establishment serving Corona and Carslberg, and playing the French "sensation" ELISE (on whom John apparantly has dibs) on repeat on the television. Unfortunately, when the boys finally came to try on the socks, they turned out to be about a size 5 and barely made their heel, let alone their ankles! We haven't tried the local Rice Wine here yet, but we have seen a few people the morning after, and it's not a pretty site. Give me Russian Vodka any day!
Also met another Irish girl Evelyn from Drogheda who was great craic, and was kind enough to pass on some tips on some of our
next stops on the trip in New Zealand. This seems to be the norm, whereby other travellers pass on their experiences in the hostels, and is a great source of information (thanks also to Martine for the Vietnam info).
Yet again, we met our buddies Steamy Dragon and Monkey Mama, and yet again they had a crazy story where they had been taken out by some local boys in Mongolia, but they ended up paying for the lads into the nightclub and all the drinks... and when they finally got wise to it, and kicked up a fuss, the most "famous" (in Mongolia!) Mongolian rap star came to their rescue. I'm telling you.. you couldn't make up these stories!
The local street food here is really good, and really fresh. Had some dumplings, spring rolls, pancakes and 'Chinese burgers' and no bad experiences.. yet! And naturally we had the local specialty of Peking Duck.. divine. Extremely greasy, but so delicious eating the crispy skin. Other local delights such as the skewered frogs, sea horses and scorpions were not quite as appetizing and we decided to give them a miss!
Watched the lowering of the national flag in
Squatting
Chinese people don't stand anywhere when they can squat Tianamen Square at dusk - it's a very big deal with crowds of locals getting a good spot around 6pm for an approx. 6.45pm lowering (time changes every day depending on time of dusk). We came across it by accident (well, rubbernecking, we wanted to see what all the crowds were about!) and it was really interesting to watch.
Beijing is a very modern city, and we definately don't feel any of the oppression we felt in Russia. They are in the middle of renovations for the Olympics in 2008 so some of the sights are behind scaffolding while other areas are marked for demolition. It's a huge city, and certainly not for wandering around aimlessly, as we found to our detriment when we ended up lost after 4 hours of such wandering. I understand now why everyone has bicycles.
Sights in Beijing were unreal (pictures do them more justice than talking about them), the Forbidden City (the Imperial Palace until the Communist Revolution, and a maze of 800 buildings) and the Summer Palace (huge public park where the imperial court would decamp in the summertime) were fantastic. Although Thomas' bright idea to hire pedal boats on the
lake in the Summer Palace turned out not to be so great when we were stuck in the middle of the lake pedaling against a very strong current trying to get to shore.. never... again..
And on our "RTW Tour of Preserved Bodies" got to see Mao in Tianamen Square - huge queues of people there to lay roses in the Mausoleum.
Trains in China great craic - there is no queueing system here at all, just one big mosh when the gates open (a little like the Westport train at 6pm on a Friday evening in Heuston!) and people getting trampled on all over the place. Crazy! Hard sleepers are arranged in three bunks high by 20 rows, separated every six bunks, so if you are on the top bunk, you have about 1foot of head room so of course I kept banging my head. Must change to a lower bunk next time!
The train can get quite dirty at times, as people just throw rubbish all over the place, between bunks, in the corridor, out the window. It's unbelieveable. As for the spitting. *shudder*. The people here hock from their toes, then a gob of
phlegm projects from their mouths to anywhere within a 1m radius around them, on the street, on the trains, in the station. Gross. Men, women, children.. they're all at it. You have to be extra careful walking around when it's windy (as it was in Beijing during the freaky sandstorms we got caught in).
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