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Published: February 18th 2009
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Lilly James and Mim
in our cabin with 6 beds - taken from the top one! :) hello once again fair readers! i am writing to you from the post office in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. it has been many days since we last had access to the internet, and so so much has happened that we have decided to do an update in 3 parts so you don't get bored and can go off to have a snack part way through if you so wish. so here is part 1 - hong kong to beijing.
As i said in the previous update, we began the trip on a slightly delicate note, but managed with the help of the Parents Smith and lovely Sam the Sailor to get to Hung Hom train station, from where the intercity through train to Beijing departs. we got to the ticket barrier 45 mins early but they were allowing our train to use the waiting room so we said our fond farewells and went through the gate, passport control and the bag scanner to find that all the seats had already been taken in the waiting room and so we sat on the floor. not the hugest amount happened in those 45 mins besides noticing one other gweilo couple sitting
Alice Mim Lilly James
On the platform at customs opposite us, the rest of the passengers being mainland chinese for the most part.
after the wait they opened the gate and we went down an escalator to find our carriage, number 3 right at the back of the train. getting on board we found our room, which was a 6 berth cabin (three beds high on both walls with a very small table and not a huge amount of luggage space) that we were sharing with 2 mainland chinese men. with a lot of faffing and dropping stuff we climbed onto the top 4 bunks and settled down for the journey. after 40mins we crossed the border into china, and alice and mim had already exhausted all the forms of entertainment we'd brought for the entire 4 month trip....haha. they do have very short attention spans :P but all was well. we had brought some snacks with us from hong kong, and when it came dinner time we found that there was really not that much vegetarian food on the train. alice managed to find some salty cabbage and rice, so she lived off that and ritz crackers for the 24 hour journey. the rest of us ate
Forbidden city
The evening we arrived - very foggy im afraid! All the decent Beijing pictures are on Alice's camera which is playing up! pot noodles, drank bucket loads of tea, and turned in for the night around 9pm. me and mim slept fantastically, finding the motion of the train very relaxing, whereas alice and in particular james found it quite tricky to sleep. they soon manned up though and are getting better every night.
the next day was spent talking to some people that mim met the night before, including the gweilo couple we'd seen at the station who were from Bournemouth (the guy was also going to Exeter uni!) which was exciting, and a girl from hong kong called beryl who we agreed to meet up with once we arrived to go sight seeing. The rest of the journey was spent doing pretty much the same stuff - eating pot noodles, drinking tea, talking to friends and staring out the window. as 3.15 got closer we packed up our bags again, said goodbye to our friends and got off the train to go through passport control. we had to find our own way to the hotel, and on our map it looked like a 15min walk from the station to the hotel, however we soon found out that our map was
crap. a police woman told us which bus to get on, so we paid the very cheap fare and counted the stops until we got close to the hotel. unfortunately we got off one stop too early, and then had to walk for a good hour in the now pouring rain, got lost twice and had to ask for more directions, before falling bedraggled and dripping into our really rather nice hotel lobby. we checked in, went upstairs and had showers, and ate a dinner of fresh fruit (which we'd really missed on the train along with nice vegetables) and more pot noodles, before falling asleep soon after. we did find out how to get to the Great Wall for the next day first though.
We woke up early in the morning (MIM'S BIRTHDAY!) to have breakfast and made our way by taxi to the bus station where we had been told we could take a bus to the great wall. as we got out of the taxi a man started talking to us in mandarin, and after 10mins we finally understood that he was telling us that the bus cost 100RMB each way per person, and that he
Interesting Chinglish...
on the menu at the Muslim bellydancing restaurant... would drive us in his taxi for 400RMB instead. realising we were being fleeced, and mim catching the eye of a bus driver who shook her head and pointed round the corner, we left the man and found the bus, which in fact only cost 12RMB per person per way. so we got on the bus and were on our way to the great wall at Badaling 😊
When we got there about an hour later, we found some really awful toilets, and lots of closed ticket booths, so we followed the crowd further up the hill. there were hordes of people trying to sell us very tacky crap, and also some really sad looking bears in disgusting cages which we didnt like at all and sort of ruined the whole experience of going to see the wall. we eventually found the entrance, paid the fee and climbed onto the wall, which was really impressive and very very steep with beautiful scenery on both sides. we walked a fair way up, and then i sat down whilst the others climbed loads of stairs and slopes to the top of the first section. when they returned we sang happy birthday
to mim and filmed it 😊 the weather was much better that day, and it was really sunny and actually quite warm once we got going.
We left the great wall, got back on the bus and headed back to central beijing to meet beryl for some sight seeing. she took us to a lantern festooned alleyway with lots of food stalls, where we ate some not hugely yummy dumplings and some yum if sickly toffeed strawberries. we then wondered around, bought some more supplies for the train journey and went back to the hotel to change for mims birthday dinner. we arrived at what turned out to be a muslim restaurant, with live belly dancing and traditional NW chinese music. the food was quite expensive so we didnt eat much, but the atmosphere was great and towards the end Beryl produced a cake she'd bought for mim which was lovely 😊 we went back via Tian'enman Square which was all closed off and guarded for some reason, before walking back to the hotel and falling into bed.
the next morning we woke up bright and early at 5am to pack and check out, collect our packaged breakfast
and taxi to Beijing Central Station to catch our 7.45am train to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. we arrived with plenty of time to spare, and so sat on the ground with what looked like the rest of beijing waiting for our train to start boarding. when it did we found our room which was a 4 berth compartment this time all to ourselves, and the rest of the coach was empty too. the rest of that story will be in the next part of the update 😊 xxxx
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mum
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Thank you for blog
it was great to hear about Mim's b-day. We miss you. Rang Caroline yesterday and found out you had written more blogs. Love form Mummy and Daddy Daddy is going along OK