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Published: September 19th 2006
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The Temple of Heaven
Where did I put my pants??? 9 days in the Mongolian wilderness with only one shower on the 7th day…could you guess how much we all stank? Yeah, pretty bad!
It was sad to say goodbye to Auto and the now beloved Russian truck, but the temptation of running water and soap was too hard to ignore and back into the UB guesthouse I went to pack up and get ready for the long journey back to Beijing.
If you managed to read my blog about Ulan Bataar, you’ll remember how painful it was for Yafeh and I to get tickets BACK to China…and as it turned out, all was not peachy-keen with the tickets we DID manage to get. Here’s what happened:
The train from Ulan Bataar to Beijing was on time, no problems. I actually had an interesting experience aboard that train (and since so many of you enjoy my little dialogue insertions…I’ll relay this story in that format):
About 11pm there’s a knock on our car door…
Sabine, Olaf, Yafeh & I: “Come in!”
Gana (A French-speaking Mongolian chick; she spoke in French, but I’ll write in English for your benefit): “Hi there! Sorry to bother
The train to Erlyan
Sabine and Olaf gettin' comfy you, but do you speak French?”
Yafeh & I: “Yes”
Gana: “Oh great! And do you speak English?”
Yafeh & I: “Yes”
Gana: “Wonderful! And do you happen to also speak Japanese???”
(Yafeh and I exchange strange looks)
Me: “Yes, I do.”
Gana: “REALLY?! Oh my good God! Please come with me, I need your help!”
(So I followed her)
Turns out, a young Japanese girl traveling by herself had the wrong ticket for the train and she couldn’t speak English. Gana was in her train car and trying to help, but she only spoke Mongolian and French. So…being eager to help, I was more then happy to translate from Japanese to French, and then Gana translated from French to Mongolian to the ticket agent. It took about an hour for the ticket agent to finally agree to a free ticket change for this poor (and broke) young girl, but we managed to do it and I was THOROUGHLY impressed with myself! (Yes, I patted myself on the back) It actually pushed the desire inside me to continue learning Japanese (and of course inflated my ego in regards to my language abilities…and even my negotiating powers). Really, an
awesome encounter and I was sincerely glad I could help.
The next morning, we spent about 3 hours at the Chinese-Mongolian border. No one is allowed off the train until EVERYONE’s passport is checked through immigration and our passports are returned. It’s so nerve racking for my passport to be in someone else’s hands…even as I’m writing this, my passport is at the Vietnam Embassy awaiting a VISA sticker and I’m paranoid about it’s return!
Back to the UB-Beijing commute: We finally got off the train and managed to locate the man and woman who were running the sleeper bus, that we were booked on. The couple gathered all of us travelers together, but then started selling MORE tickets to extra people. We were all sort of wondering if there was going to be enough room on the bus. And as we all pushed and shoved onto said bus, our fears were confirmed as half the passengers had beds…and the other half were standing. Everyone started screaming and yelling about the impossibility of standing all the way to Beijing, the ridiculousness of the situation and wanting refunds etc. We drove for 5 minutes and then the
bus driver told us ALL to get out! This was so stupid! What were they doing?! None of us knew what was happening, but we all disembarked the bus and waiting almost an hour for further instruction. Finally, another bus showed up, Yafeh and I got on the first one and Sabine & Olaf ended up on the 2nd one (meaning we had to say goodbye to them there).
Although small, the sleeper bus was actually kind of fun. The bed was way too short for me, but a fun experience nonetheless. As the night pushed on, the driver turned out the lights and we all looked forward to arriving in Beijing at 6am and then checking into our hostel. It’s all good.
(When we bought out tickets in UB, the ticket agent showed us the schedule and it SAID we would arrive at the Beijing bus terminal at 6am. Six in the morning. SIX. Six AM!)
At TWO am…the driver turned on some crazy Russian techno beats and yelled, “GET OFF THE BUS!!!”
Yafeh and I were so confused!
“WHAT? What’s going on? Where are we? Is this a bathroom stop? Why did he wake
us up?”
“It’s Beijing! Get out! Beijing! Get out!”
“WHAT?????!!!!!!”
With no local currency and no open ATMs until 6am, we had to wait in the middle of NOWHERE for 4 hours. FOUR HOURS! Doing nothing. Yafeh and I waited with 4 other people who also didn’t have any money (to take a taxi somewhere). We played cards for hours until we could TRY to get money out of the ATM from this random building’s lobby. But, as chance would have it, the ATM didn’t work for any of us, so with only a few cents worth of currency to our names, we walked with our packs until we found a bus stop, took that up to the subway line and then walked another HOUR (still with our heavy packs) to the hostel.
PHEW! That was quite the trip back from Mongolia! Don’t really want to do THAT again.
And to top off the exhausting journey back, I was in Beijing again! Affectionately know to me as ‘the land of smog and dust’. Surprise surprise, the weather in Beijing was cloudy with no chance of blue skies. I mean, just look at all the
pictures below! They’re all a different variation of gray! Yuck.
I was a little disappointed not to get a ticket out to Shanghai that night, but it DID give me a chance to see a couple more touristy sights in Beijing. One of which was the Temple of Heaven Park
The temples of this complex were once used as a holy site for the Son of Heaven to perform solemn rights. He went there to pray for the usual: good harvests and the forgiveness for the sins of his people. All in a days work. Some of the sights were off limits to us the day we went because of restoration work (I swear all of Beijing is under a perpetual state of construction) so we didn’t get to see the infamous Round Altar or the Echo Wall. The Echo Wall would have been quite fun to see actually, as it boasts that if you stand at one end and your friend at the other, you’d be able to hear each other’s whispers.
In the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (yes, quite a name) I was stunned to learn that the whole building was built
without nails or cement! The wooden pillars support the 38m high complex with no problems whatsoever, making it quite an amazing example of Ming architecture. Unlike so many temple buildings in Asia, this building had never been destroyed by a war, but rather by a lightening bolt in 1889. It was originally built in 1420, so I guess it was due for some ‘restoration work’ the year after the lightening. The gardens had spectacular landscape, and although the sky was still an ugly gray, it was delightful to see green grass and beautiful flowers in the middle of the city.
And that’s it! Enough Beijing sightseeing already! Time to leave for the night train to Shanghai. Let’s hope my next Chinese city can provide a more enchanting sky colour!
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dad
non-member comment
life training
Kryst: Just think about these experiences and how they are making you stronger. You may never experience another travel crisis like being in Bejing in the middle of the night with no money and nothing open. I am sure it was not funny when it happened, but you will laugh at it in the future. Love you. Dad