Advertisement
Published: September 12th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Due to vastly divergent opinions, we've decided to write separate blog entries for China so far:
"Wretched Duck" by Penny
China is not what it's cracked up to be. The flashy images portrayed during the Olympics are poles apart from the truth.
The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square and the Temple of Heaven make fantastic postcards, (once the choking pollution fog is photoshopped out of existence), but the reality is much more hellish.
The Beijing sun doesn't shine.... it 'glows' through a haze of smog so thick you can feel it sliding down your throat & gripping your lungs. The word 'crowded' is an understatement. Rude and pushy people hock up dirty green caloogies in the street, constantly spitting their foulness right at your feet, before cutting infront of you in a line for the toilet or subway. They stare & point without shame, as though we each have 3 heads and the bodies of horny toads. So rude! And the food, ugghhh. Greasy, fatty, fried pig, dog, rat and seahorse. I ate a wretched duck-breast that has turned me off Peking Duck Pancakes for good. All I crave is a nice tub of Plain Organic
Yoghurt and a fresh Chicken Salad.
A day trip to the JinShanLing Great Wall had the potential to be a calm day of misty green hills & a UNESCO World Heritage site to behold. Instead, it aroused in me a fury of indignation. At the midway point between 2 buses we were accosted by a hoard of private car owners posing as 'taxi' drivers. One in particular was unrelenting. He followed us to the toilet and tried to convince us there was no bus to The Wall. We spotted a Tourist Info sign pointing 500m down the street, at which point the stalker jumped in his car with a mate and drove at walking speed down this busy main street yelling, "Hello, hello!" Second-guessing our destination he screached ahead and armed the Tourist Info door before rudely peering over the clerk's shoulder as she handed us a map and directions to the bus stop. We left and the stalker drove up the wrong side of the busy main road in order to continue beckoning us onto his stupid taxi, leaving a kerfuffle of swerving and beeping in his wake. Idiot!
Ironically the 'non-existant' bus turned up, leaving the
stalker in a cloud of dust. One forgettable bus ride later and we found ourselves alone on the Greatest Wall ever. We hiked 10km's up and down vertically steep crumbling steps, (this part was actually fantastic), before a couple of Mongolian farmer's wives latched onto us and ruined the serenity for a good half hour. Fed up, Dave confronted them, at which point they gave us an ultimatum: "You buy coke and souvenier, and we go home". BAH! WE DON'T CARE. YOU GO, YOU STAY, WHATEVER. WE NO WANT YOUR OVERPRICED JUNK!
Karma repayed me for my negative vibes. A dodgy piece of pork knocked me on my ass for 2 days. I am surviving on plain boiled rice and bananas and I'm now officially vegetarian. Dreading the next 3 weeks in this godforsaken country & trying desperately to alter our travel plans. Next stop India: Sheeeesh, I am literally quaking in my boots!
"Back In Beijing" by Dave
It has been five long years since l left Chinese shores and (as predicted) nothing much has changed. The people you meet are lovely and helpful but the general public has a long way to go before
"Laowai" (or foreigners) feel welcome walking the streets. The price of things has escalated a little with five years of growth and an Olympic debt to pay off. The food is as greasy and as dangerous to eat as it ever was and the pollution does make you feel like you've smoked a couple of packs by the time your head hits the pillow. But man it's great to be back!
We have been in Beijing for five days now and have been sighted at all the typical Beijing hotspots such as Tian'anmen Sq and the Great Wall. Not having built up an immunity to dodgy Chinese food before, Penny has fallen ill (despite the Travelan) and we extended our stay here to give her a little more time to rest and recover. This turned out to be a blessing as I mistakingly bought tickets to Paralympics the night we were intending on leaving. We scored ourselves an evening Athletics session and last night trundeled off to the action at the "Bird's Nest". We plonked ourselves halfway up the stand and right behind the finish line. We sat next to a Canadien guy who had a 14 year old
Population of China: 1.3 Billion
(and they all seem to be catching our train) daughter with mild Cerebral Palsy racing in the first heat. Despite our cheers, she narrowly missed making the final but there were plenty of Aussies to cheer for throughout the night. By the halfway mark, the stadium was packed to the brim with 91,000 screaming Chinese fans (that couldn't do a mexican wave to save themselves) and we left very early as Penny had had enough, to beat the crowds on the subway (Id hate to think what the peak crowds wouldve been like!)
The fellow travellers at the hostel have been great and given Pen a variety of pills, powders and potions to help her get better.
A 13 hour trainride ahead of us tonight to Xi'an where I will be brutallty reminded of how small Chinese trains really are. Again its great to be back!
PS:
Just one more of many things that should've made the blog the first time we write it but just slipped through the cracks when remembering it all:
Beijing is an insanely massive flat city. Penny rightly pointed out, the entire architectural set-up is dehunamising. Walking down the street makes you feel like a flea in a land
Our last taste of freedom before China
This is a photo taken whilst airborne - No waiting for the toilet on this flight! of giants. Roads as wide as 2 football fields end to end are flanked with chunks of enormous buildings: hotels, government headquarters and high-rise apartments. Unlike New York skyscrapers with their human-scale arcades, awnings and shops at street level, Beijing's built environment pays no homage to the pedestrian. It is an unwelcoming desert dominated by the car, with no attempt to address correct proportions in an overall sense.
Beijing's hutongs (alleyways) are a pleasant way to escape from all the madness and experience the simple life (even if they are a bit smelly). Yet they hold more than a few nasty surpises inside. We had the pleasure (?) of using a public toilet in a hutong that defied he concept of privacy. Upon walking inside Dave was met with a row of squatting men reading newspapers (cubicles non-existant), who all looked up briefly before getting back to work.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.053s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 12; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0271s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Rosanne
non-member comment
Ohhh...the difference of cleaniness!
Penny and Dave, Read both your concepts of China. They were both interesting, especially Penny's version of events...she sounds like she is under the weather and needing recovery. When you feel like that you wish you were at home in bed, and I have been through it backpacking in Indonesia, the so called "Bali Belly" yes I got it. Penny, hope you get better and Dave all the best with taking care of her...stay away from food sold on the street.... The climbing of the wall sounded and looked fantastic...Obviously something you two will remember forever! As for the rude people...best to just ignore them, as they will only bug you more! Be Safe and Well, Rosanne