What a day this turned out to be !

We were up early and discovered that the hot water in the taps from last night had been cunningly replaced with glacial run-off. Lesson learnt: find out when the hot water is on ! Our driver (Wang Shu Min) was on time and washing his cab outside when we got to reception. We negociated (probably not very well) a tour or the popular sites with the intention of staying the night in Yingxian on the way to Wutai Shan.

Lots and lots after the break…..

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A very bumpy and cramped bus ride got us to Beijing West train station. Lucky the bus stops are displayed in English and Chinese or we would have been circling Beijing all day. The station is massive, slick and clean but packed to capacity. Our first local train in China, destination Datong. We had the hostel arrange the £6 ticket for a £2 fee (well worth it). The earlier train had standing room only availble but standing for 6 hours is not an option for us. We got a “hard seat” which turned out to be a typical train seat. To continue a theme, the carriage was stuffed. Not only were all the seats full but the floor too, making it difficult for anyone to move anywhere. People were constantly up and down the carriage including fruit and food trolleys inspiring mass shuffling on a regular basis. It was also noisy, very noisy and we were the only westeners onboard.
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Okay – I have spent the morning sorting some pictures and working on the ‘Count de Money’ spreadsheets while V has been researching where we are going next. Working with Excel in Chinese was not easy (been without Open Office since a virus had a little fun with my memory stick). Dad will be helping me get the graphs updated sometime soon. In the mean while I have finished tagging and sorting photos up to Helsinki – which means I’m only 3 countries behind ! I need another 5 hours solid in front of a PC to catch up the rest but we have run out of time here in Beijing.

We are popping out for lunch and then heading for the train station. I suspect we will not have a decent internet connection (or time for that matter) to update for a while. Our plan is to head for Datong, then Xian, maybe Chengdu, then the Three Gorges Dam, Shanghai and down the coast to Hong Kong. We have to be in Hong Kong by the 18th July. Let’s see how all that goes.

Bye for now – Simi & V 🙂

V’s cold has gotten a lot worse and she hardly slept. She can now qualify to hock and spit like the rest of China. We may have to resort to some traditional Chinese ‘medicine’ to knock it out of her (yeah right). We were up at 6 to get to the gorge.

The minibus ride out to Dragon Gorge was long and made longer by a major traffic jam and having to wait to link up with another tour group. The 3 hour transfer turned into 4 hrs before we finally arrived at what looked like a theme park. The Chinese are great at taking something that is a natural wonder and converting into a tourist Mecca. To get up the the gorge you take a set of elevators climbing a few hundred meters inside a concrete dragon that is stapled to the side of the mountain – like having esculators up Table mountain. Once above the dam the scenery is unbelievable. Steep norrow gorges covered in vegetation. As you cruise around the valleys, stunning scenery eventually gives way to more traps (little bungee jump, high wire act, temples, viewpoints etc.)

Having little time at the gorge and with V sick we opted for a little wooden row boat so we could explore a little away from the crowds. You have to pay for everything in China. Even to take a photo at a scenic spot, but the boat only cost £5. My rowing (and the paddles were not up to scratch) but it was a bit of fun. Getting back we decided to have a paddle each but V’s short little T-Rex arms were letting her down as she patted the water 🙂

The free lunch and the trip back were uneventful. Out of the tours we have down with the hostel I would say this was the least value for money but worth it for the scenery – looking forward to more of the same in the month to come. One problem on the trip back was the inconsiderate cow in the seat in front of me pushing her seat right back making it impossible for my legs to fit. We moved seats and it happened again. What is it with people ?! If I were 30kg heavier I would have pummeled a couple of travellers today.

Anyway. Tonight is our last night in the excellent Beijing Leo Courtyard Hostel. We have lots to get sorted out for tomorrow…

[Pictures: ooooo pretty cliffs – V got a cute new hat so I’m using her old one until I find a suitable replacement.
GPS position: N40.54685 E115.99634]

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If anyone has time and If anything interesting is happening out there (tech, world news, coup in Thailand etc etc please post comments about it. When we get online we just sync the blog and research the next destination. Don’t have much time to check all the sites and blogs we love (Boing Boing, Pharagula, Gizmodo, BBC News, Engadget, Bad Astronomy etc etc). Starting to feel disconnected – maybe a good thing? Tomorrow we are heading out of Beijing so not sure when will next be able to post or check in.

Thanks all 🙂

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We now have a rough plan of where we are going over the next few weeks. Southern China needs time to dry out and we have 3 weeks left on our first entry of our visas. We have organized train tickets to Datong via our hostel (leaving on Friday) and are planning on working our way down to Xian (terracotta soldiers) then onto 3 gorges dam before heading East to Shanghai then down the coast to Hong Kong. Will re-evalutate the plan and resources from there but at the moment it looks like we will come back into China on our 2nd entry of our visas and wiggle our way through the southern provinces hopefully to Tibet.
Disclaimer-plan not fixed, may change dramatically depending on situation.

After sorting or plan out, we toddled off to the Ancient Architecture museum. Turns out it is free on Wednesdays. Incredible! We actually got something for free in China. Plus it was practically empty so double bonus. Not a lot to see but some intricate scale models showing how the beams and rafters all fit together like puzzle pieces. Looking for the loo I used the international sign language of a squat motion with immediate result.

A quick once round the Temple of Heaven park (a very big park with endless forests, gardens, more temples and cute chipmunks) followed by another long slog home and we were done for the day.

Caught a Kung Fu show this evening at the Red Theatre. A very Vegas style show. Lots of lights and fog machines. It was really good. Combined a bit of theatre (bit of a cheezy story line), singing, dancing, acrobatics and choregraphed fighting. So we got a bit of everything. Definately worth it.

The weird rash on my legs and feet seems to be slowly fading. My cold however seems to be getting worse. I’ll survive though.

[Pictures: Taking a pic in the heaven, Naughty V snuck a shot in the Kung Fu show]

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Can someone please let us know if there is a Season 7 of House planned ? I need to know.

Back at the hostel. Amazingly we still had some energy to do some planning and plotting. Things are changing rapidly now. Will try to post our plans – when we decided on them! I started sorting photos again but the Internet connection was shocking. Am really going to have to reduced the number of pics I upload or I’ll never get it done.

V, besides feeling fluey and flemmy has got a nasty rash all over her legs. Seems she is falling apart. For me it’s just my guts – but that is no surprise (and hopefully we toughen up).

[Pictures: V’s Legs – looks owee, Plotting Domination]

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We set out with renewed vigor after the inspiration of the great wall and a good nights sleep. The Summer Palace was first on the list for the day. About 15km from the town centre the place is beyond massive. We strolled around for hours checking out the vast gardens, palaces and temples. Taking photos was a bit of a flop as the smog was particularly bad today, but it did feel marginally cooler. The ‘Marble Boat’ (no it doesn’t float) was odd, but not half as odd as my icecream – Mielie flavoured ice cream wrapped in what could be described as edible ‘plastic’. Blargh!

We took a ferry (Dragon Boat – but not really) across the lake to visit one of the islands and swallowed an excellent hot-dog for lunch. A very long walk around the lake (dodging the Safas from yesterday) and up through the spectacular Buddhist temple where V and I had a race up either side (well V ran up the stairs, I watched and laughed) got us to the top of the mountain/hill and back onto the subway shortly thereafter.

Next stop. Another highlight and engineering marvel. The Olypmic park with the Birds Nest Stadim and the Cube Indoor Arena. Wow. Awesome. Like a 100 000 hotdogs awesome. There was some show on so it was not worth our while to go into the stadium, but wow again. It is looking a bit grimy though – that smog again. V tried a can of herbal tea – not recommended – I’ve taken to orange juice.

We then headed over to the Wangfujin shopping area in search of a few items including chopsticks and a big map of China what more do you need to plot domination ? The snack street was filled with more gross looking food and creepy crawleys on sticks. If you can push a stick through it the Chinese will eat it!

V is usually brilliant with navigation but when she gets it wrong – oh boy! We walked forever and ever to get home. Through some very scary looking areas and detouring around city block sized construction sites where the municipality has demolished the old Hutongs (fiendishly narrow and dingy streets not unlike slums but that are apparently ‘full of character’) to be replaced with shiny new buildings. People are up in arms (well you would never know it) about the transformation – I’m in two minds.

The city is vast but we have been using the metro system most of the time. At 20p a ride to any destination it’s reasonable, clean and easy to use but the trains are not as frequent as London. The other way to do it would be to hire a bike. Since everyone here rides it should be fine but the traffic chaos put us off.

The last stop before getting back to the hostel was sups. More rice and fried something. Quantity was too much and it seemed expensive – we think they billed for plates ?

[Pictures: Mielie icecream, The Birds Nest Stadium, Fried Something]

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Happy Birthday to our good Fin-boertjie friend Nico. Hope you had a great day Nico. Love from both of us to you and the clan.

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Another big tick on our imaginary list. We hiked 10km of the Great Wall of China today. Amazing !

It was an early start for us. Up at 6:30. The Hostel reception came to check that we were up at 7. I have to admit this hostel is amazing with everything.

A 2.5 hour bus ride full of western travellers and tourists took us past the busy (typical) section of the wall, which is packed, to a more remote location. The 30 of us had 10km of wall all to ourselves.

As soon as we started out our ears tweaked as we heard the old Safa accent coming from 6 other people in the group. So far all the Safas we have come across have been more proud, annoying, loud and obnoxious than the sterotypical American. We were embarrassed to be assocated by birthplace as they droned on and on to poor unsuspecting Euros and Americans.

The hike was strenuous. The first section has been restored (like the popular spots and what you see on postcards) but as we climbed up over hills and down valleys the wall reverted to ruins – which were far more intersting to me. V was really battling (unusually) with her cold but we were both thankful for the cloud cover and spots of rain.

Lunch at local farmers was typical. Rice and various fried things but nothing odd. We all snoozed on the bus back home while nat geo videos of the wall and South Park played on.

It was an incredible and exhausting experience. A full day’s adventure. Tomorrow more sightseeing in Beijing.

[Picture: V looking worse for wear on the wall, and a view of ‘the stone dragon’
GPS Location: N40.327260, E115.968525]

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The camera plague continues for us. The brand new, less than a month old POS (not PAS) Canon IXUS 100IS started giving lens errors (jamming open or closed) on the Great Wall today. I’m really annoyed – we have taken perfect care of it – what a waste of money – but mainly cause V can now rag me about how bad Canon is 🙂

By the time we got home it was totally unusable. I tried to fix it, but feeling (not looking) like Tony Stark in an Afgan desert cave did not help. Thinking of setting up a donations page so we can replace it with something better. In the mean while we’ll have to go back to the sluggish sensor spotted Nikon, eeuww.

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Ok so we started out a bit lazy today only getting out the hostel at 1 pm after trying to organize what we want to see and do in Beijing. We have booked an additional 3 nights at the hostel and organized a tour to the great wall 2m.

Hopped on the subway and proceeded to Llama temple. Lots of people there, but it is a working temple so there were also people lighting incense (minimum 3 sticks to honour budha according to the signs). There a 22m high deity sculpted from a single sandelwood tree (it’s in the Guiness Book of Records). Possibly it would have been put to better use printing a few thousand copies of ‘On the Origin of Species’ ?

After that we tried to find the confucious temple but got a bit turned around and then realized it would be closed before we got there. Decide to have an ice lolly instead. Noticed some ice lolly packaging with picture of peas on a one with corn on it. Wish we had taken a foto or tried one to see if it did really taste like frozen peas.

Back on the subway next stop the night market. We were expecting a dodgy alley but instead found it on a wide modern street and all the vendors looked pretty sanitized. I’m wondering if it has been cleaned up for the tourists. Apart from the usual kebabs and fish there were live scorpions, centipedes, sheep penis and the like all for sale on kebabs. I can’t believe anyone ever actually tries any of that stuff.

We had time to kill before dinner so we figured we would try to find the restaurant early and just find a spot to sit down and wait outside. We walked the entire length of the 2km long street without finding the restaurant we were supposed to be meeting at. At the end of the street were run down shops and restarants that you certainly did not need a reservation for. We tried asking a local shop keeper and even a taxi driver for help but to no avail. So we walked all the way back up the street before eventually finding it at the top of a very fancy department store. (Cartier etc)

Dadong restaurant is a seriously larny place and we were feeling way under dressed in our shorts and strops. Zipping on the rest of our pants didn’t help much either, knackered from our long walk we were shown to our huge table. Our new friends arrived shortly thereafter and we ordered 2 roast ducks.

Thankfully this time we could actually have a conversation together though the kids were seated far away at the other side of the huge table. The duck was very good. First time
having Peking duck. The guys carve them up with great precision at your table (a senior chef watches the as another carves just to make sure it’s done right) and a lady introduces you to how to eat it. Delicious but could have done with a few more ducks. Sim was battling with his chopsticks. Think he will start having to carrying his spork around with him in future.

When the bill came we were gobsmacked by the price and upon querying it further it turned out that the water we had been drinking was more expensive than the food. Seriousy, the water cost 47 RMB for a little 350ml bottle (about £4.7, but normally 10p for 500ml at any street corner) and we had had 10 of them (to give an idea that is the value of 20 KFC Zinger meals here with chips and coke in WATER !! And compared to street food, KFC is expensive). We couldn’t believe it – would have been far cheaper to have wine. Andrea and I are convinced it is a scam for tourists.

Unfortunatley I seem to have caught another bout of flu/cold so was feeling pretty awful on the way back. So it was straight to bed for me. We are going to have to try stock up on cold and flue stuff but the pharmacies here don’t have any thing we recognize. The is a huge herbal/garbage medicine market here. We could not find any rennies so we are hoping the stuff we did find at the chemist will do the trick.

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For sups we were invited by Andrea and Nick to a Tibetan resturant close to the silk (more expensive) district. Having been there before, Andrea was surprised at how much it had changed. Nothing like a good review in the Lonely Planet (LP) to dissolve the charm and ambience of a place.

Being the only group of euro tourists there we were treated to front row traditional entertainment (something out of ‘The Long Way Round’). Good but very loud so conversation was difficult. The food was good too – I ended up with a deep fried yak (hairy cow) steak.

Was a great evening but we all got carried away with the wine (thanks Nick). By the time we left, the staircase to the street was a challange. The subway home was also intersting. There are no doors between carriages (the whole train looks like one carriage) so you can see the train twist as it goes around corners. Even more intersting with 5 glasses of good red wine in you I promise.

By the time we got home I was feeling extremely rough – no more details on that ! I’m such a cheap date. Thanks again Andrea and Nick – great fun.

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Okay we are ready now for more sightseeing. Enough of this sitting on trains for days at a time. The plan was to get up early and get to see Mau before the crowds hit. Well that was optomistic. On the way down to Tianeman square I got a hair cut. They did a great job, but not the cheapest. I was considering going bald to blend in with the locals but realized my hue would need changing too. Breakfast from a street vendor was around £0.40 – egg role and a chive frittery thing.

The square was already packed with locals but the ques for the chairman were not too long and we decided to join in. Mau’s moseleum is probably 100 times the size of Lenin’s, agh shame. They sell flowers outside that you can lay inside and we are convinced that they just recycle them back to the shop until the start to whither. Mau, like Lenin, did not have much to say but is looking good (V is convinced they are fakes).

Then on to ‘The Forbidden City’. The LP guide suggests taking in Mau and TFC in a morning. 6 hours in the sweltering heat later we emerged (thanks to V’s navigation skills – what a maze !) It is incredible in size – The Russians need to take a lesson on what a ‘palace’ is supposed to be. There are apparenlty around 9000 rooms in the complex governed by bright colours (reds, blues, green, yellows) and intiricate detail. Again it was packed with tourists but that was expected. On one of our many sit down stops I fell asleep on the bench (I was far from the only one).

The treasure rooms were good but we were honestly spent by the time we got there and we just missed the clock and watch exhibit – guess that meant it was time to leave haha.

It was well worth the visit – you can just feel scences from ‘The Last Emporer’ and a variety of Kung-Fu movies 🙂

[Picture: TFC halls as far as the eye can see and me looking roasted]

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We made it ! 7925km from St Petersburg to Beijing by Rail. That’s a major tick in our book. So excited that V has even written a post… and here it is..

Woke up this am to much more interesting scenery. Mountains, valleys rivers and tunnels before arriving in Beijing.

Found an ATM, broke a 100 RMB note (why do ATMs insist on dishing out high value notes that no one wants?) and got on the right bus. Being given detailed directions to your hostel is the best thing ever. It made us feel like Kings just being able to use the public transport straight off the bat.

Bus fare is super cheap at 1 rmb (about 10p) each, though we have now learnt that the conductor ladies do not like being given anything except exact change.

The first thing we have noticed here is that all the signs have English on as well. Even the bus stops were repeated in English.

Our hostel is a lekker spot down the end of a pedestrian market. To get to it you pass by all manner of things being sold, people cooking outside, bicycles and electric mopeds beeping at you to let them pass. It’s chaotic and wonderfull.

We have noticed a few people with dogs. Not sure if they are pets or if it’s just easier to walk your dinner home instead of carrying it.

We checked out Tiannemen square this afternoon and caught the lowering of the flag ceremony at sunset. Lots of domestic tourists out doing the same thing. We had two teenage girls come up to us and start chatting. We weren’t sure if they were trying to sell us something, practice their English or if they were just being plain friendly. It was an odd experience.

Something we weren’t aware of is that once they have lowered the flag, they close the square and boot everyone out.

Tomorrow we will be doing Mao and the forbidden city followed by dinner at a Tibetan restaurant with the lovely family we met in Mongolia. Looking forward to it. Sim is in desperate need of a haircut so we might also brave one of the many hair dressers we have seen so far.

BTW we had the best KFC zingers for dinner tonight. Sim has been craving one for weeks now. We have spotted half a dozen KFCs since arriving. We love China already.

[Picture: V chilling in the hostel’s courtyard]

– Posted from my iPhone