China- the theatre of dreams and chaos

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November 9th 2007

Published: December 31st 2007

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robsta

can you see me?????

how cool is this pic???

Well Guys and Gals, we have managed to find our way to China, for the next leg of our adventure. We were lucky enough to get a pick up at the airport, as after a 12 hour flight, the last thing we needed was to find our way to the hostel in a country where no one spoke english!!! (cheating I know, but imagine the feeling!).

Our hostel is slap bang in the middle of a hutong. A hutong is a chinese alleyway, where you will see the real china. There are stalls selling meat, fruit, veggies and street food, like dumplings, pancakes, sausage on a stick and kebabs. But, these people live in poverty. Its sad to see boxes resembling beds, where these families live, in their shop.

After a few hours rest and shower, we head on out to find our way around. We are armed with a map, and we are happy that our map reading skills are fairly good!! Well, that was until we saw signs in chinese!!! There are English signs, but they all look alike, and it got really confusing and frustrating. We travelled 2 hours in a circle, for a journey that

Morning exercise

These workers were caught during the morning exercise drill!!

should have taken 40 minutes!!

Traffic is something to behold here in China. There is chaos in the streets of Beijing, and that is not an understatement!! The golden rule seems to be, the aggressor wins. You have to push your way in, driving cars, bikes, etc. Small gives way to bigger. Pedestrians are the lowest form of traffic, and have to fend for themselves. GREAT!!! Crossing roads here is really a matter of life and death. The golden rule is.....don't stop. If you see a vehicle coming towards you, keep walking, keep eye contact,and they will manouvre around you, even thou they have their finger pressed firmly on the horn!!!

Surprisingly, there's no shouting or road rage of any sort. The pollution, however, was horrible on our first day. My chest was gasping for fresh air, and was tightening like a vice. You do wonder how this city will ever be ready for the olympics next year??! There are very few english speaking restaurants (or maybe they just don't want to speak english, just to watch you squirm!!), and given the traffic, the pollution, the very confusing road signs, and the horrifying noise of people spitting around

chop chop

Eating with chopsticks!! A salad for our first chinese meal!!!

you, i wonder if the Beijing olympics will be remembered for all the wrong reasons!! Good Luck. I have it on good authority that the medals will be gold/silver/bronze, inlaid with white or green jade. That in itself will be worth the taking part/dying of intoxication!! I suspect thou, that the chinese athletes will all win, as they will be used to the pollution, and the rest of the world athletes will fall by the wayside in fits of coughing and spluttering!!

Eating, on our first day, was something of a problem. We went armed with our Lonely Planet guide, which had some dishes in it, and translations. However, this did not prepare us for this rather hillarious event. We thought we would be able to look at a menu with pictures, and just point..............but we didn't know what we were looking at, and asking what kind of meat was in the dish was not in the lonely planet guide!! So we decided to take the safe option of using the guide, but nothing we pointed to was available at that restaurant. So we ended up ordering a salad and wonton soup. The look on people's faces when they

Behai Park

The majestic emperial gardens

brought the dishes out was a picture in itself. We felt about 1cm tall, and wondered how the rest of the trip would turn out. "we really need to get this bit in order for next time" Carmen orders, and I happily agree with her. However, it was an experience, and one we seemed to get better at as the week continued.

You can't come to Beijing and not sample Peking Duck. We asked about the best place to eat duck, and were told and Quanjude Restaurant did the best duck in China!! That was a statement, and we went in search of this famed restaurant. However, we got lost again, and ended up asking a tour guide where this place was............."Its no more"!!! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! So we saw the tourists come out of this restaurant, and decided to give it a go. I must say i've had better duck in England, and was decidedly disappointed at the result. But alas it was on our final day, and we never will get the chance to experience good Peking duck in Peking!!!

Another thing to mention when it comes to eating in Beijing, is that there seems to be a

a royal place

Behai Park

common consensus that locals have one menu (which is cheaper), and tourists have another (which is uncomprimisingly more expensive!). Not that it will blow the budget in 1 meal (although i guess it depends on where you go and what you order), but it does leave a rather unsavoury taste inyour mouth!!!

As a person of asian decent, i did not feel worried about coming to this part of the world. However, we noticed quite quickly on our first day, that I seem to be a bizarre spectacle for the chinese. This started with the strange staring as i walked through the streets, which can only be described as a look of bewilderment, and alian find. It got to a point where i had to start doing something back, because it was so obvious, and soooo pissing me off!!! It got to a head, when i stopped to put my jacket on, and i had people from a shop stop what they were doing to watch me do this menial task. They were giggling like school kids, and i had to pull a face, and start a little dance. This was met by further laughter, and waves, and off

behai park

a private pond in a royal park

we went!! People have stopped to take pictures of me, and i can only guess that it is because they have never seen an indian man in China, or they think i'm famous!! I would rather think the latter, and get on with my trip in relative calm, than spoil my trip worrying about this, but if you were to experience this obtusity, what would you think?

DAY 1-We visited Behai Park, which is a beautiful imperial park, with fantastic, elegant buildings and surroundings. It covers an area of 68 Hectares, and this is not what it seems on the map we have. It is covered by luxuriant pines and cypresses and the buildings with glazed tiles and red walls. It is emense, and we spent hours traversing through the park.

We walked through the Forbidden city, not venturing inside as it was nearly closing time, and was met with our first con artists. We had been warned of these people at our hostel, and i recognised them immediately. 2 girls, not especially pretty, asked if i spoke english. I say yes, and they ask if they could practice their english. They ask if we can go for

a foggy day in Beijing

The white pagoda in the background is barely visible due the emense fog on our first day.

a drink somewhere. This place is their bar, where we would rack up a big bill, and they would leave it to us to pay. So it was a quick sharp "NO" from me, and off they went. I couldn't help but watch them aim at another obvious tourist, but alas they were unlucky again!!

Day 2 was seeing the Forbidden City and Tianemen square. The Forbidden City is a maze of squares inside squares. Called Gu Gong in Chinese, it was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is the world's largest palace complex and covers 74 hectares. There are 9,999 buildings here. This was because the Forbidden City was on Earth, and it was impossible to have 10,000 rooms, which would conflict with the number of rooms in the version found in Heaven because the number 10,000 symbolizes infinity. The architecture of these places is a wonder to behold, with glorious colours, flowing roofs, and granduous stature. You cannot help but wonder what it was like in the days of the emperors!! As yellow is the colour of royalty, all the roofs are this colour. It is now listed as a UNESCO world cultural

marques by the lake

these centuary old marques shows the architecture that is evident in all of chinese buildings dating back to the jin empire.

heritage site. There are 4 watch towers surrounding the palace, and this would enable smoke signals to be relayed from the great wall.

Dat 3- The Great Wall. This is indeed a great wall. We booked this through our hostel, and for Y200 each, we were taken to the most photographed, and therefore busiest part of the great wall, Bedaling. This part is some 400 years old, and has fantastic sweeping views of mountainside. Inbetween these snakes the great wall, not to keep out the rabbits (stupid aussies!), but to keep out the Mongolians and Tibetians, who were seen as lower class people. However, Gengis Khan always said that a wall is only as strong as the people who man it. To this point, he was right, as the Mongols were able to pay off the guards, and force their way through the wall, and into China. It was built by the First Emperor of Qin in 215 BC who was told by a magician that barbarians from the north would be able to attack his empire. The work to throw back the "barbarians" and to erect a defensive wall was undertaken by his general Meng Tian.

You

Behai park

Beijing, Pentax SLR

wonder how they built this wall, which has steep inclines either side of each tower, and took several years to build, through Quing and Ming dynasties!! There are also parts that are quieter and less populated with tourists. However, it has always been a dream of mine to go to the great wall, ever since i built a papier mashe version of it for a school history project. I have now ticked off one more dream, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes. Its an enchanting place, and as you sit at the highest point of the wall (tower 8), and take in the aweinspiring views, you find yourself meditating about life, what has happened, what is yet to come. It is a truely spiritual place, spoilt somewhat by the touts and the carnival of tourists that decend on it each day!!

The entrance to the wall is lined with touts trying to sell souviners to tourists. More disconcerting however, are the 2 small enclosures of black bears, who are obviously starving, and are desperate for someone to throw them a morsel of food that lines the outer brim of the walls. Its a terrible sight to see,

entrance to the forbidden city

The entry point to the forbidden city, so called because

and you wish to punch the people who cage these animals up for the attraction. We move straight through, not wanting to be prevy to this torture.

There is a rollercoster ride to the start of the climb, and it is the start of the strange goings on at this famous place. The great wall is held as one of the 7 man-made wonder of the world, but the glisten is taken off somewhat by what we see.

The steps are steep, and remind me somewhat of the deep steps of table mountain in South Africa. That was a 1000M climb up. This was not so long, and only took us about 20 minutes to walk up, but there were people who could not manage to get to the first tower, and gave up!! It was strange that you had Kenny G playing his saxaphone in the background of this wonder, and it does take some of the mystery away from the place. However, the scenary is a marvel to behold. There are towers littered all over the wall, and were used to send smoke signals to the forbidden city. At the highest point, the rest of the

Forbidden city

Beijing Pentax SLR

wall kind of pales into significance. You literally feel on top of the world, and I cannot describe the feeling of standing in such a place.

Day 4- Summer Palace

A bus ride away from our hotel (and we safely manage to decipher which bus we need), we head to the summer palace. This again is teeming with tourists, mostly other chinese and japanese (the japs get everywhere!). Having the largest royal park and being well preserved, it was designated as a Key Cultural Relics Protection Site of China. Containing examples of the ancient arts, it also has regal landscapes and magnificent constructions. The Summer Palace is the archetypal Chinese garden, and it was listed as one of the World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. We are again given a map, I think only given to english tourists, as we get lost again!! Maybe our map reading skills are not as great as we thought!!!Infact, the summer palace is about 294 Hectares. It housed several decendants of Jin through to Qing emperors, and was a haven away from Beijing. We managed to watch a show of chinese dancing, music and acrobats, which became the highlight of the day. Its

View from outside

outside the forbidden city. Notice the flowing rooves!!

another amazing place to visit, and encompasses all that you would expect of ancient china. Staff walk around in traditional clothes, and we even manage to order a really nice lunch! The summer Palace really takes a whole day to visit, and one I would recommend.

Day 5, and we have managed to book a train ticket to Xi'an through our hostel. I must say that the hostel we stayed in was not the best, and they really do milk you for all your money. But, it was better than wasting a day standing at the train station trying to fathom out who, where and what to ask!! So we get an overnight sleeper train, and the rest i will tell you in the next addition!!

In conclusion, we are happy that we came to Bejing, as it is an experience that really does open your eyes. But, and once again Carmen and I are in complete agreement, we would never hope to return to Beijing again in this or any other lifetime!!! Its a monstrosity of a city, and although there is beauti in the parks and famous sites, it is spoilt to all points, by the

tianemen building

The famous building, overlooking Tianmen square, with a picture of the famous Chairman, Mao Tse Tung.

overcrouded, overpolluted helter-skelter life that is Beijing.
Secondly, if you do come to Beijing, I would probably not recommend the Red Lantern, because basically i think they are a rip-off. Everything is overpriced, as is the norm with Beijingers and Tourists, and one of the hostels recommended by the Lonely Planet will probably be a lot better.

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