From Inner Mongolia to North Korea via an embalmed Chairman...

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Hello all, have made it to Dandong and made it to a (surprisingly non-dark and non-scary) internet cafe, and we feel almost as though we've landed in Korea! A lot of fun, and an ace city, but more on that later.

Last stop was Hohhot, and off to Beijing. The overnight bus wasn't as horrific as I'd feared - picked up some kung-fu moves courtesy of Jackie Chan and people didn't smoke/spit, but my seat didn't recline and the man in front loved his mobile phone a little too much! So didn't sleep a great deal and when the bus got in at 4.20am we were confronted by a bunch of scary men, so hopped in a taxi to central Beijing.

In the end, had a great little daytrip to Beijing! Dumped our bags in a locker and freshened up, then went to see the not-so-fresh Chairman Mao in his mausoleum (or 'house' as Megan preferred to term it). It was... pretty weird! The queue (indeed, there was a queue!) moved pretty fast, and the first hall, with a giant statue of Mao, was really quiet (the quietest I have ever seen the Chinese, in fact). The second hall, with Mao's body, was weirdly noisy, with security moving people on really quickly! Mao himself looked waxy and... well, as old as he was, really! And that was it. Inside for less than 5 minutes. Still, was pretty worth doing, and Megan can add another despot to Ho Chi Minh!

After that, we headed to Silk Street for a bit of bartering, but it was just full of irritating rude people who were trying to take us for a ride, so we left and found a lovely vegetarian restaurant called the Loving Hut! The wee man was so cute and we sat there for ages before getting our train to Dandong!

The train was hilarious because we had a giant fight with two Chinese ladies who stole our seats. At first we tried to be nice and let them sit on my bed for 2 hours, but then one practically sat ON TOP OF ME when I got into bed and tried to sleep (after pretending to tuck me in - shifty) and so they had to be given what for, haha. So cheeky given we had paid for those seats (and bought them that morning!). Given train tickets in China are released 10 days in advance they could easily have had those seats if they'd wanted. Never mind, victory was ours in the end! After that, had a really great sleep, best train sleep so far!

We arrived in Dandong at about half 7ish and immediately liked the place! We found a great hotel, run by Koreans, for the princely sum of 100RMB (a tenner between us) per night with Western bathroom, very clean bedroom and Korean TV! Have had a really great day so far. This morning we went to see North Korea - so surreal to be just across the water from the most closed state in the world. We walked out on a bridge over the Yalu River which was 'accidentally' bombed by the USA, so only half the bridge is left. It's right next to the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge though, and there were a lot more trucks going across than I'd expected. After the bridge, we took a boat ride across the Yalu and were about 200m from North Korea itself! Saw plenty of people, but they didn't seem to be doing anything 'propaganda'-ish; just fishing, building etc. Was so weird to look from Dandong (mega built up, high rises etc.) over to North Korea (nothing!). Very surreal.

We then headed to the museum commemorating US aggression (!), but it was closed, so back tomorrow. After this we're heading to a restaurant that is apparently run by Pyongyang for some Korean BBQ! Tomorrow we're also going to a part of the Great Wall that runs parallel with the border, so more North Korean fun (!) to be had.

Sorry for lack of pics! Will try and get the USB on the go asap.

Jen

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