From Independent To Tour Travel In One Easy Step

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…And So It Begins…

Arriving in Beijing, I was greeted by quarantine officials before even leaving the plane wearing goggles, masks and gloves and armed with a temperature gun. Not the most inviting entrance to a militant country I must say , but still better than the poor bloke a few rows in front of me that woke up to the “germ warfare scientists” pointing a gun at his forehead. From his reaction, if I could have seen his face it would have been priceless!!

Managing to find the hotel was easier then expected, but I had come prepared for the taxi driver by getting the hotel name and address written in Chinese at the information desk of the airport. What I hadn’t come prepared for was the pollution blanketing the city making visibility almost nothing and breathing about the same (I don’t want to hear any comments about smoking here thank you… I assure you my tour group has given me enough already.)

Meeting the rest of the group that night, it was like a bad joke, with 3 Englishmen, 3 Canadians, 3 Australians, 2 New Zealanders, 1 Irishmen and 1 American with a Russian tour guide. The Australia and New Zealand rivalry got going straight away with some friendly banter over sport and sheep, before heading out for our first group meal in China. Like all the other countries I’ve been to, I find that the food cooked locally make the stuff you get in Australia pale in comparison. Not to mention, Beijing is cheap and I hear the rest of China is even cheaper.

The morning brought with it no respite from the smog but on we travelled, meeting our local guide and heading for Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is beyond words…. it’s HUGE!!! Housing Mao’s Mausoleum, Parliament House, The National Museum and The Forbidden City , it covers enough ground to fit one million people for celebrations such as Chinese New Year. It is impressive to say the least. The military presence was noticeable but never hostile though we were warned not to take photos of them and especially not if there was something that required their “services”. In the middle of the square stands the monument that commemorates their revolution and both locals and tourists are everywhere (even though we were assured that it was a quiet day because being Monday, the mausoleum was closed.)

The Forbidden City is an imposing structure that stands opposite Mao’s Mausoleum and stands on a line from the Temple of Heaven through to a structure housed behind the Forbidden City. In ancient times, the Chinese thought that China was the centre of the universe and that the emperor, being the closest to god, was at the centre of that, therefore the line running through the Forbidden City was called the Meridian Line. Walking through the first gate, you are instantly presented a long walk to another, and another gate, and only then are you in the outer palace where the emperor conducted meetings and presided over the country. Across another moat and through another gate and you enter the true Forbidden City where the emperor, empress, concubines and eunuchs lived. The last emperor was 3 years old when coming to the throne and was overthrown by his ministers in 1924. He was hidden from the government in north-east China before being smuggled into Mongolia. He was eventually captured and returned to China where he was held prisoner for over 20 years (although his prison was what the Chinese call re-education.) He was taught that he was not the embodiment of god on Earth and shown how to be a normal person because he had never even gotten dressed or tied his own shoes as there had always been people that did everything for him. With a special pardon from Chairman Mao, he re-entered society at the age of around 45, and became a gardener for the city.

With a half day free, I decided to go check out the Temple of Heaven used by the emperor to bring good harvest to his people. Getting there was easy. In fact, getting to all the main places in Beijing is with their subway system and also very cheap. No matter how far you travel it is a flat fare of 40c for the trains and 20c for the buses and because of the Olympics, the system is also in English and very user friendly.

The Temple of Heaven is in a large parkland used by the locals for everything from gabling on cards to karaoke and dancing. The temple itself is an enormous round pagoda surrounded but halls and an enormous bridge that the emperor used to walk barefoot down to ask god for a good harvest. The process was long (taking place between the afternoon and the next morning, once a year) and involved animal sacrifice.

That night we were taken to the Chinese Acrobats show which in my mind was like seeing Cirque Du Solei except with younger performers. Worth it?? For $25 instead of $150 for Cirque Du Solei…. Definitely!!

Up bright and early the next morning, we were headed for The Great Wall Of China. Taking about two hours to reach the restored section high in the mountains, it dawns how NUTS the Mongolians must have been to try and scale the mountains, let alone get over the wall. Impressive is an understatement!!! Cheating and catching a chairlift to station 5, I left the rest of the group and started off at a pace for the high stations between 18 and 20. With only two and a half hours to squeeze in 15 stations there and the same back, I made good time until the final push for station 20. About a third of the way up, some smart b____d had counted the stairs and it was already to 200. I’m sorry but if I’m in pain and not even half way, I DON”T WANT TO KNOW!!!!! The only downer of the day was the fact that the pollution of Beijing reaches even that far and coupled with the dust (it was constantly over 35 degrees) meant that the mountain ranges in the distance weren’t as clear as I would have hoped. Still, another box ticked off and another UNESCO World Heritage Site seen.

Wednesday morning and the real journey begins!!!!

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” - Martin Buber

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