Advertisement
Published: April 12th 2008
Edit Blog Post
BEIJING Arriving in Beijing was a bit of a shock... Beijing Capital Airport is amazing, but as soon as we got to the tourist information to see if we could find a hostel (we had no time for this in London), we came up against a tourist informer that could not speak a word of english... we are not sure how they are going to cope with the hordes of tourists that will arrive in four months for the olympics.
We made our way to the city centre without knowing where we were going to stay... Saga Hostal was the destination, we got off the airport bus and we trustedly jumped on a bicycle-taxi powered by a lawnmower engine, who told us he would drop us at the Saga Hostal... five minutes after going through some tiny alleyway Hutong streets, he told us the Saga was around the corner of a mayor avenue. We gave him 20 Yuan (1.50GBP) as agreed, walked around the corner and no Saga Hostal. Our first rip off of the trip... and our first contribution towards the local community.
Anyway, after one hour of walking around with our rucksacks, we found a really good
hostal next to the rail station, about five minutes away from where the airport bus dropped us off. The next day we went off to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, the day was not too good... and we were not sure if it was the polution or bad weather. Tiananmen Square is huge and the massive image of Mao covers the hole place, the Forbidden City is a complete labyrinth, full of walls, alleys and palace buildings, with beautiful gardens.
In the second day we did a tour to the Great Wall (Badaling), which ended up being more of a commercial selling tour of Jade, chinese pottery, tea and traditional medicines. The visit to the wall was really exciting, even though it was full of tourists, but it was incredible to see the wall wriggling around the mountains without realizing where it started or ended. We walked around for about two hours, and the day was beautiful... and at the end of the day, the foot massage we had at the traditional chinese medicine place was just what we needed. We then finished the day off with some delicious Peking duck in a restaurant we found near the
hostal, and went to bed without yet recovering from all the lost sleep before leaving London.
Getting around Beijing was quite difficult, with pretty much no english from anyone, even at the large hotels... and most questions you ask you will get a nod as if the answer was 'yes'. But don't be fooled, they will always be after money as in most places you will go to, and somehow they will try to get you to get into their taxi, hotel or buy their things at inflated prices. Nevertheless, we had a great time getting around, trying out things to eat and seeing new wonderful places. We also visited the Summer Palace, which was a massive park full of gardens, temples, and a huge lake... also full of tourists, but well worth it.
XI'AN We also decided to get on a flight to Xi'an to see the terracota warriors. It was much of a flash trip, and we arrived there at 1 am, but they seemed much more ready for tourism than Beijing. The city was also impressively modern... we expected some little village in the middle of nowhere, but got a 7million people city which is
the queen of highways and illuminated spaghetti junctions. The terracota army was more than impressive, although at one point I had the suspicion that the chinese had played a major trick on the world by making this army and pretending it had been buried for hundreds of years.
At this point we decided to make another contribution towards the local comunity... Lorena was resloved to get a small set of terracota warriors, and when the little chinese man went down from 150Yuan to 70Yuan(5.50GBP) for a five figure set, we thought we had the bargain of the day... so much that two Australians going with us also bought a set taking advantage of our bargaining powers. Outside the building we were then offered the same set for 40, 30, 20, 10 and even 5Yuan. But the one we bought was of much better quality... (that's what we like to think anyway).
A day later we were back in Beijing and completely exhausted from lack of sleep and so much sightseeng... this traveling business is really hard work, and for all of you out there working 9 to 5, and wanting to go traveling around the world for 6months
or 1year... you are better off where you are, it much easier, relaxing and better for your back... so stick to your day job.
The last couple of days in Beijing we spent at the Lama temple, the olympic site checking out if they will be ready for the Olympics in August, and the Zoo, to see the Panda bears which Lorena did not want to miss. Somehow we still felt like we walked for miles and miles, and that we always needed more sleep. In general terms our first week of our trip was great!... we still needed an extra 27 hours of sleep, and wonder how all the tourists are going to find their way around in the Olympics.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.034s; cc: 14; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0304s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Alexander Ott
non-member comment
Danny!
Is Danny having too much Beijing duck?jijiji