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Published: October 19th 2007
Hello Peeps!
We have arrived in China! Wow! We arrived in Beijing on Monday morning and met some Geordies who were going to our hotel! Surprisingly on our "basic" tour we have been in hotels (luxury!). We spent Monday exploring Beijing, learning to cross the roads (not easy!... there are so many bikes and traffic!), and we went to the Temple of Heaven with the geordies we met.
We met out tour group that evening in the hotel and went out for a meal to get to know each other. The food is lovely, we had a lovely banquet meal which was fantastic. There are 12 of us all from Australia, England, America and Croatia and everyone is lovely.
The next day we set out on the great wall. It was a very early start... 6.30... and I thought we were on holiday!? The great wall was amazing and the views were absolutely stunning, they just got better and better. The locals came up with us and we learnt our first few Chinese words. It's such a hard language to pick up, some words have 30 different tones to say it with and one slightly different tone and
you end up swearing! The locals that come up with us are really sweet and helpful on the steep bits. The guy that came up with me (Lou!) tried to help me on a steep bit on the way down (he must have seen that I wasn't managing...) and I refused thew hand he was offering, then ended up slipping, grabbing onto something which ended up being his balls! Very embarrassing....! He he! When it came to tipping I figured I had already paid him something... he he!
On Wednesday we went to the Forbidden City with some of our group and had a hilarious guide called Sarah who really didn't tell us too much history about the Forbidden City but told us funny stories about her and her family. There are some big party conferences going on in Tianenman Square at the moment so it was quite crazy and there were tons of police. Our guide took us around the pearl market in the afternoon and we had some fun bargaining for 3 jackets. Well it started off well but the bargaining soon got quite tiring.....!
Thursday we were up early for our overnight sleeper train which
was lots of fun! There were 6 of us in this wee cabin so we really have started to get to know each other well! The Chinese are dead friendly and taught us some more Chinese words in the dining cart... the essentials... beer! We played games all day and chatted and arrived in Zhongwei this morning.
We took a trip on a bus today to the yellow river. It was a very bumpy ride... think I may have whip lash! We rafted down the yellow river on pig skins! There were about 14 pig skins with sticks of wood over them per raft. That was lots of fun, so peaceful! Chris ended up deflating her pig skin (she has put on a lot of weight due to the huge banquet Chinese meals!) and ended up the only one with a wet arse!
Tonight we have been to the hutongs (the night markets) which are wonderful. The food is amazing and unbelieveably cheap. We had hotpots made up, steaming bowls of veg and meat. We sat outside in the cold with these steaming bowls. It was great, the night markets have a buzzy happy atmosphere with all the
locals.
We are setting off tomorrow to the desert for our overnight camel trek which is very exciting!
I hope you are well!
Lots of love,
Lou and Chris. xxxxx
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Chris and Lou
Christine & Louise
Congratulations
Hi there, big congratulations to you both, that's great news! Looking forward to seeing you both, lots of love xx