Zàijiàn Beijing, Sawatdee Kha Thailand!!

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We woke on our final day in Beijing excited that it would be our last. This meant we would be heading to the hot weather and friendly people that Thailand is known for! To be honest, other than our trip to the Great Wall and time spent with Joe, our experience in Beijing had been just okay. The people were far less friendly than we had expected, and coming from Vancouver, where the multiculturalism is something that we are extremely proud of and known for, it was quite a shock to see almost no people of different ethnicities in Beijing. Other than at the Great Wall, we could count on two hands the amount of Westerners/Europeans we saw, including the night market. This was just a shock to the system because everywhere else we have travelled (Europe, all over North America, Mexico, all over the Caribbean) there has been a plethora of multi culturalism and although we considered our time in Beijing to be a great cultural experience and awakening, it felt isolating at the same time. Another thing we found surprising was how unfriendly the people were in Beijing. Even at our hotel, when we tried to communicate and use the Mandarin words that we tried so hard to learn, we received zero response. No smile, no attempts to communicate using body language and limited knowledge the the others language. Any attempts at communication were cut off from the person we were dealing with. This pattern continued throughout all of our time in Beijing, really leaving a sour taste in our mouth. Still, we had one last day in Beijing in which we planned to view the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace dates back to the Jin Dynasty in the 1100s when construction began. It has been declared a World Heritage Site and is referred to as a masterpiece of Chinese Garden landscape design. We packed up our backpacks and had the hotel store them for the day as we checked out of the hotel. The subway, as always, easily took us to the Palace and we paid the nominal fee to get inside. The architecture was beautiful and we imagine that in the summer when the trees are lush and the lake is sparkly under the sun, that it is stunning. On a cold winter day with wind chill making the temperature -15, however, the landscape was sparse, the lake completely frozen (meaning we could not take the boats across), and it was uncomfortably cold, even with our thermals on! We wandered for a while, climbing up a steep unmarked path reminiscent of the Grouse Grinds steepest sections, hoping that it would lead us to the Buddha temple, which luckily it eventually did... But not without a workout! We finished up at the Palace much earlier than we had anticipated, as the temples all looked exactly the same and we didn't want to risk walking too far to see something different but not having the boat as a failsafe to quickly transport us back to the entrance - remember, the Palace is nearly 3 kilometers! We still had plenty of time before we needed to even leave for the airport. We walked past a hutong to a McDonalds where we had Americanos and played some scrabble on our iPad. We were freezing (faces only, luckily our thermals were good!) and welcomed the warmth from the coffee. The smell was tempting, but we refused to eat at McDonalds again! Even if it was over 10¥ cheaper for a meal at this location than the one on Wangfujing, we figured we should attempt to eat Chinese food again seeing as we were in China. The nasty smell from the previous night wasn't burning so vividly in our memories at this point, so we figured we would give it one last shot! We headed back to our hotel where we knew a noodle shop was. We enjoyed noodle soup then grabbed our bags from the hotel and took a taxi to the subway. We could have walked but had some leftover Yuan so figured we might as well fork out the 10¥, which is nothing where we come from! The most confusing part of our subway experience came here, as this was a major interchange station and for the life of us couldn't figure out where the Airport Express picked us up! The attendants were no help, but luckily a European tourist stopped to point us in the right direction and before we knew it, we were on our way to Beijings Airport and a little bit closer to Thailand, the entire reason we came on this trip! We were 4 hours early for our flight, so we had some ice cream and played some scrabble as we were too early to check in. After we could finally check in, we spent some time looking around the shops (Swarovski is much cheaper here, ladies!). Our flight was delayed by over an hour, but it was otherwise uneventful and we landed in Bangkok eager to experience the heat! Our hotel in Bangkok offered free airport pickup if you stay longer than 2 nights, a welcome offer in a city this large with an arrival time of after 12am. We found the young guy with a sign saying Stephs name, and within 40 minutes we were at our hotel checking in. What a sharp contrast our experience in Bangkok was so far compared to Beijing. Even though our driver couldnt speak English, he was smiling and had a friendly affect. With the cars air conditioning on, we could still feel the warmth. The staff at the front desk of the hotel were so welcoming, making us even more excited for our stay in Thailand. We booked the #3 rated hotel in Bangkok per TripAdvisor, and it was easy to see why. At less than $35/night, we had a large modern room with A/C, private bathroom, double bed that was firm but comfy enough, and free wifi! We went to bed almost right away, hardly containing our excitement for all of the experiences that were yet to come, including Khao San Road & Phad Thai off the street!

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Comments

[Marion & Norm]

Love the blog and pictures