Advertisement
Published: October 15th 2007
Edit Blog Post
On the Great Wall
We chose a part of the wall which was a fair distance from Beijing, well worth it to avoid the crowds. Before we started on this trip there were a few things we had heard about China, such as the crowds, the food, and the hygiene (or lack of). The first two we are very used to and knew exactly what to expect. The third concerning hygiene was to hit us like a bad smell (literally).
Arriving in Beijing Main Train Station was like arriving in a different world compared to Mongolia. It seemed like a billion people were in the train station alone. The food in Beijing proved to be as good as we thought, but then Ross got a dose of the hygiene issues and was laid low for a few days with Beijing Belly. As for the toilets, well, we just had to get on with it and try and ignore the 'bad smells' and worse.
Our first dinner in Beijing was at Quanjude Roast Duck restaurant, which was one of the most expensive meals that we had had on our entire trip, but boy was it worth it. We met up with some of our new friends from the Trans-Mongolian trip, and we feasted like we were royalty. And although it was expensive for China, it was
A fairly Great Wall
Although we started our 10Km walk along the wall in the rain, the weather did clear up and we were dry by the end.
not bad prices compared to London.
Our accommodation in Beijing was a small hostel in one the Hutongs. These are the old traditional areas of Beijing, a hive of activity and markets. Most of the houses have a small enclosed courtyard though, providing respite and refuge from the insane activity outside. Unfortunately for Beijing, it seems like the officials do not like these, as they do not fit into the new Olympic Vision of Beijing, and too many of these hutongs we saw had been demolished to make way for drab featureless buildings or some were simply hidden behind big walls.
Off to the great wall next. We saw it from the train but at a distance, it looked like a gigantic serpent crawling over the mountains. Getting close to it was even more spectacular. We chose a more quiet section, where we would walk for 10km. The weather was not great but the setting was spectacular, the misty horizon made it look like an old Chinese painting. The walk was challenging in places, as we were forced to clamber over rubble up the steep inclines, but it was a much more rewarding experience than visiting a newer
Forbidden City
One of the many courtyards inside the Forbidden City complex. The whole area is huge!!
'restored' section.
All in all Beijing was a very exciting place to be, so much noise, excitement and activity. The rest of our time there was spent seeing the sights (Tiannamen Square, Forbidden City), shopping for cheap rip-offs in the markets, or relaxing in parks. Before we knew it we had spent longer than we expected, so we boarded our train and headed off to Pingyao.
The train was a local one and we had reserved a hard sleeper, but on boarding it became apparent that there were a lot more people than seats or beds. We spent the journey huddled on our beds trying not to touch anything as it was not exactly clean.
Still bright and early we arrived in Pingyao, a small city that despite being in one of the most industrial provinces had managed to escape destruction. The city is still like the set of an old movie, with a huge wall encircling it and narrow streets with houses of grey brick and red lanterns everywhere. It also felt like we were somewhat off the beaten track even though we were just 12 hours from Beijing. Yes there were troups of microphone wielding
Hungry lion
Hungry lions guard the courtyards of the Forbidden Palace.
Chinese tour groups, but there were not that many western tourists. The locals were not afraid to stare, mostly at Lynda with her red hair and freckles. I am surprised that we didn't cause accidents, it is hard to navigate through a busy Chinese street on a bike while staring the other direction at the Foreign Devils (what Chinese people call foreigners).
A short bus journey later and we arrived in Xi'an. We expected a small city like Pingyao, but were taken back by the size and modernness of Xi'an. Our main reason for coming here was to go see the Terracotta warriors (although it seemed ironic that we would travel to the other side of the world to see them, at the same time a massive exhibit with hundreds of warriors would start showing in London). Nevertheless we went to see them and they were spectacular.
If we thought that long rain journeys would stop after the Trans-Siberian we were mistaken, we still had some big ones to go, including a 26 hour journey to Guilin. This time we splashed out and bought a soft sleeper which was much more pleasant than the hard sleeper on the
From the Forbidden City to Tiannamen Square
On our world tour of dead Communist leaders unfortunately we were unable to see Mao. Apparently he was under repair.
local train.
With only a brief stop in Guilin, we took a boat trip with our packs, down the Li River, one of the most beautiful sights in China. If you have seen pictures of a calm river, winding around tall pointy limestone outcrops, then this is probably here. Our destination was Yangshuo where we would spend quite a few days, time enough to explore the area. Yangshuo, like the Li River, is surrounded by these steep limestone hills, we took our time to explore the area, mostly on bike. This was one of our most enjoyable times in China, the scenery was gorgeous. We had to dodge the odd rainstorm, but then this is the rainy season. The town of Yangshuo was not all that great in itself, it was very toursity, but the markets were interesting. To be honest seeing both live and dead dogs in the meat sections was quite a shock.
We also took a long day trip to see Dragons Backbone Rice Terraces at Longsheng, again we had dodgy weather, but the terraces were spectacular, they have taken hundreds of years to develop by the local people.
Finally we took a sleeper
Behai Park
There are always interesting things to see in Chinese Parks.
bus (a strange concept I thought, but it was surprisingly comfortable), to the border with Hong Kong where we crossed on foot. Hong Kong would be a brief interlude in our trip before we would be back to China.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.348s; Tpl: 0.028s; cc: 15; qc: 81; dbt: 0.0808s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb