Travel report #16
China - Beijing
Tuesday April 3, 2001
We had problems getting tickets for this train to Beijing, ended up with a seat only over night. Not much room and Chinese all around us with their habits. We had a hard night.
Arrived in the capital early in the morning, freezing cold. Followed as usual a 'lady' that had a nice room waiting for us, only this time with no success. After a lot of mess we ended up doing it on our own finding a nice LP reccommended hotel, Far East Hotel. Placed in the famous Beijing Hutong's, only 15 minutes walk from the Tiananmen square, this was a perfect place for us.
Started the day with practical stuff, visiting the Vietnamese Embassy to fix visas. Then we walked across the Tiananmen square, got to see the entrance to the forbidden city with the big Mao portrait. This square is (or was) the worlds biggest city square, but it is a lot smaller than it used to be because of the Mao mausoleum and the People Heros something monument...
We met three nice students at the square, talked with them and got good advice, and then they followed us to their art gallery :-) Chinese art is nice, got a good introduction.
Wednesday April 4, 2001
Had a sleep in (after almost no sleep last night), before we headed for the big attraction, the forbidden city. Got a Roger Moore-tape to guide us and spent several hours in there. Very facinating with buildings, paved walkways, stone sculptures, a garden etc. Fantastic!
(two trees grow together - a romantic site :-)
After several hours of nice Ming architecture and history, we visited todays 'big hero', the Mao mausoleum. We got in line and were rushed through the body of the man. He looked a bit plasticy... Weird to see a man with that much controversy being that popular...
As yesterday we met students, got to talk to the locals, the price we had to pay was to visit their art studio :-)
Thursday April 5, 2001
Wild Wall day! Our best day in Beijing, was spent hiking along the Great Wall, on a strech where almost no other tourists go (a part of the wall close to Huariou). We followed our guide book, took local buses and taxi, but ended up a bit outside the given directions, giving us an even wilder wall. We walked the first 2-3 hours on authentic wall, partly overgrown but very well precerved, without meeting a single person!
(IA was first to touch the wall!)
They weather was great, fresh air, perfect hiking temprature, no sun no rain. We eventually came to the section described in our guide book and started to meet some other tourists (but mostly had the wall to our selves the whole day).
The last part was stunning (called Gaping Jaw). Very steep, and partly destroyed over time. A local guided us down, good luck because the path was very tricky and we could not walk the wall all the way the last 50 meters.
A fantastic day. Good exercise, fresh air and on historic ground. The wall is unbeliveable. We could see it strech in both directions, up and down, turning here and there, for as long as the eyesight could reach. The amount of stone used for this is unthinkable, it is about 600km in total!!
Friday April 6, 2001
Visited the 'Temple of Heavenly Peace' park. Another fantastic sight, not that different from the forbidden city. A huge 'tower' as the highlight (38m high and 30m diameter), in typical Ming style. Really nice. We walked around the whole complex, a nice and relaxing park.
Picked up our Vietnam visas before we relaxed at the hotel listening to the Karaoke from the hotel basement. Not very good singers the Chinese...:-)
Saturday April 7, 2001
We rented bicycles and headed for the Summer Palace. Passed by the Tiananmen square and continued for about 2 hours before reaching the Summer Palace. Facinating experience, riding on our bikes with all the Chinese!
The Summer Palace was as fantastic as the first two Ming sights. A big park with a lake, islands, a Palace build on a hillside with fantastic views, a unbelievable 'corridor' with paintings all the way, hundreds of meters long! We spent hours wandering around admireing all the nice sights.
On our way back we stopped at a nice restaurant and ordered Peking Duck. Fantasticly good food! We were lucky and got a small Chinese famlily next to us ordering the same, so we wathed and learned how to eat it :-)
The ride home was in darkness, with no lights on our bikes. Guess we might should have been quiet about this, the Chinese are crazy in the trafic...;-)
Sunday April 8, 2001
A 'day off'. Walked in the streets and looked at Beijing. Amazing how close to the Tiananmen square one can find back streets with locals, living in simple houses and with local market stalls and shops. Interesting.
In the evening we went to the Opera to see Beijing Opera. Not much to say about it, terrible music, nice costumes and some acrobatics... It was supposed to be a translator screen, but it did not work so we have no idea about the story, except that there was a love story and a fight... Expencive experience...
Monday April 9, 2001
We were very pleased with our visit to the Wall, so we wanted more and this time went with the tour recommended by the hotel. A big dissapointment. They took us first to a tourist marked selling jade stones, then to a tomb that was nice but not all that facinating after seeing Ming buildings in the city. We then visited a Chinese herb medicine place, got a free excamination from a 'doctor' that of course recommended expencive herbs to cure our problems.
At last, after lunch, we arrived at the wall. The bad weather was not helping, but the wall here (Badaling) was very touristy. Sellers upon you all over the place and the wall shined up a bit to much, they even played music to our 'entertainment'. Even a cable car to take tourists up the steepest part... We were cold and headed for the bus after a quick walk...
Tuesday April 10, 2001
Strolled around the streets of Beijing before heading for the train station (the West train station is enourmous) and the train to Xi'an.