Beijing draft

I [heart] BJ!!

That's what the T-shirts say at the souvineer shops that flank many of the streets in this huge fascinating city! And we'd be inclined to agree, who wouldn't love BJ!

Happy to be leaving UB, we crossed the Chinese border following the tail end of our Trans-Mongolian train journey and as we passed in between the limestone mountains, trying to get our first glimpse of the Great Wall, we were really excited about setting foot in Beijing. China wasn't a place we'd originally planned to spend much time, but after some reading and research it's looking like we'll easily be making the most of our 30 day visa.

As soon as we set foot off the train we were consumed by the crowds of people. Everywhere. It was a sea of Chinese people pushing and shoving their way through the train station. Fortunately at 6foot tall, David was able to easily rise above, and whilst keeping hold of each other we found our way to the exit. We then caught our breath and regrouped. We managed to find our way to the subway and whilst still being caught amongst the mass of people, it was easy to find the way to our station. And at 20 pence per journey to anywhere in the city we couldn't complain.

We spent a lot of time in Beijing wandering around the Hutong(s), which are the many mazes of backstreets that have made up the centre of the city for hundreds of years and are lined with tiny houses, shops, hole in the wall restaurants and toilets. There are over 1000 of these streets left - there used to be over 6000 of them before modern development and the huge skyscrapers began dominating Beijing.

It was nice to be able to walk from one end of the city to the other via these backstreets. Each Hutong has their own little community with families sat outside their tiny houses either chatting with neighbours or cooking their lunch; men gathered round card tables; kids playing on the streets; tiny street stalls selling all sorts of tasty cheap snacks; old ladies to young boys riding round on their bicycles, making you jump as they ring their bells behind you; the occasional old man shouting hello with a big smile as you wander past - one man even walked past Dave, shouted "nihao" (hello), walked over and stroked him. Now that's friendly.

These streets also provide a wide variety of sounds and smells, some pleasant and some disgusting. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately considering the alternative), there are public toilets everywhere on these streets. So, as you walk through the hutong(s) listening out for the occasional bicycle bell, warning you of their presence, you firstly smell flame grilled chicken or pork that is being cooked in spicy chinese spices - and with it being only 10 pence you buy a few of these delicious snacks. Then 20 yards down the road as you bite into your scrumptious treat, you are suddenly hit smack in the face with the smell of fresh sewage, or the sound of a man hocking up and spitting onto the path in front of you. But, other than the odd smell of poo that you soon learn to avoid by holding your breath for the 5 seconds as you pass by the lavatory and the occasional grozzer, the hutong(s) are great. Not just in the day but at night too - we would walk them everywhere, at any time. There are plenty of places in Burnley that we wouldn't like to be on in an unlit backstreet in the dark, but here in one of the biggest cities in the world we felt safe as houses as people milled/cycled about and the shops and restaurants stayed open 24 hours.

Interestingly one night in a hutong we witnessed a woman catch her man cheating, soap opera style. We were sat outside a shop, enjoying a beer on the street with some of the locals, when we noticed a woman acting strangely. She was well dressed but for some reason hiding behind a big pile of bricks looking at a restaurant window. She was there for a good 20 minutes occasionally getting her phone out looking as though she was ringing somebody but not getting an answer. Eventually she started speaking to someone, 2 minutes later a man walked out of the restaurant also on his phone, but the woman remained hidden obviously talking to this man. After a while she emerged from the bricks and confronted him and they had a huge argument in the street! The things you see in a hutong!

The biggest site within the city itself which is located in the centre of Beijing and next to Tiananmen Square is the Forbidden City (Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties). It was designed to be the centre of the ancient walled city of Beijing and is enclosed in a larger walled area called the Imperial City. The Imperial City is, in turn, enclosed by the Inner City and in total houses 980 buildings with just under 9,000 rooms. Basically it's a load of massive walls with little cities within each wall and as you can imagine, we soon got bored...We did however successfully enter, which was a treat because a hundred or so years ago if you turned up uninvited you would have been beheaded. Inside we walked through the cities which all housed 'three great halls' exhibiting the original thrones and furniture that was used over 600 years ago when the Emperors ruled their empire.

Behind the Forbidden City is the only hill in Beijing, Jingshan Park which offers amazing views across all of the city. We visited a tree where the last of the Ming Emperors, Chongzhen who alongside his faithful eunuch servent, ran away from the Palace and hung himself following a peasants revolt. As we made our way through the park we stumbled across a group from what we can only guess as being from an old folks home who were playing live music, singing and dancing. We watched as they sang and danced to a variety of Chinese folk songs but the highlight was when an old man clocked Claire and asked her to dance. Although Claire was politely trying to refuse the old man, he was rather was persuasive and grabbed her hand leading her into the centre of the crowd...so, much to Dave's amusement, there in front of 50 or so Chinese people Claire and the old man danced a little jig.

The parks throughout Beijing are what we imagined - quaint, beautiful and pretty peaceful. Every turn of a corner there is someone doing Tai Chi, with some people either stretching or holding very still next to a tree. In one park a man was walking round the entire place backwards whilst another man was walking round just clapping.

We have really enjoyed interacting with people in China. They are usually shy at first (well, apart from the odd arm stroker), but once engaged into conversation or following a simple "Nihao" (hello) they usually smile and laugh along with us as we both try to interact. It's also been very tricky getting directions in Chinese but we've only been lost once, on our first day when it took 2 hours to do a 10 minute walk to a Peking duck restaurant. This is partly due to David's interpretation of Chinese symbols, for example, our local subway was called Zhangzizhonglu which in symbols is "弓长白忠ั 5;站" - so we would therefore look for:

A snake, letter 'K', a Ladder, a Robot reading a book, a Robot sat down at a table eating a fish and Robin Hood with a machine gun.

It is not the easiest thing to do.

As we are both huge fans of Chinese food in England we were very excited to see what was on offer and actually sample the 'proper stuff'. In Donghuamen night market the street stalls are lit up by hundreds of red lanterns which line the pavements and as we guessed there was a lot of weird and wonderful things to choose from...

* Lamb, beef and chicken skewers (meat on a stick)
* Corn on the cob
* Quail eggs
* Fried tofu
* Pork sandwiches
* Noodles
* Octopus/squid
And if course, not forgetting...
* Insets, bugs and sea creatures - such as grasshoppers, spiders, starfish, caterpillar type bugs, sea horses and scorpions (some of which were still alive and wriggling). See video.

We weren't too adventurous only eating eating meat on sticks, a pork sandwich and some quail eggs.

We have also eaten at many nice courtyard restaurants surrounded by red lanterns and pretty gardens, and we have eaten in many tucked away backstreets in the early hours sat on tiny stools with the locals and furry rat shaped creatures that were rummaging in the bins and climbing the trees next to us. Food roulette out here has taken on a new level with all the creepy crawlies on offer. Purchasing anything where you can't see what it looks like before is a risk that we haven't taken too many times to be honest, but mostly everything that we have eaten has been delicious and has only cost us between 10p and £3.

Peking Duck - Very different, not as crispy as the Peking Duck that we know from Rau Senh in Nelson. The duck is cooked in a wood fired oven, then sliced and placed separately on different plates. The fatty skin is to be eaten on its own, but firstly dipped in a garlic sauce and then sugar and the meat is to be eaten wrapped within a pancake. The one bit that we we weren't too sure about was the 'piece de resistance' - it's head, which had been hacked in half giving access to it's brain (had the texture of pate). It's not all bad though when your only paying £2.50 for a full duck. It's actually rather quacking!

Hot pot - A big pan of boiling broth that has been filled with chillies and spices. You then have a choice from a selection of meats that have been marinated and prepared on sticks that you then cook yourselves in the broth. This is then finished off by shoving in a load of noodles to enjoy as a soup afterwards. We were pretty tame with our choices by choosing things we recognised - chicken, beef, pork and veg. Noticing this and obviously misunderstanding our caution for stupidity the lovely owner brought over some of her favourites for us to try - octopus, tongue, heart, squid and brain.

Beijing spicy tofu - Bought by David not knowing what it was, Claire asked if it tasted fishy as there was a slight smell to it and David said no, however after thorough examination Claire then pointed at all the tiny fish heads contained within the spices.

We have also eaten lots of chicken wings, meat on sticks, soups and more noodles that you can shake a stick at.

Our main highlight of Beijing though, has to be the Great Wall. Instead of going on an overpriced tour we opted to find our own way via a bus to Mutianyu (our chosen place to explore the wall from as there are several to choose between), which took us about 2 hours to get too. Once there, you could opt for the cable car up to the wall if you preferred, however being the young fit types that we are (and the fact that we couldn't justify the 50p lift to the top) we decided to walk up to it...

The beginning of the walk up to the wall ascended into the thick forest and up what felt like never-ending steep steps, with its path continuously turning corners giving you the false hope that you were nearly at the top. Imagine walking the steep bit of Pendle Hill three times over, but in the baking China heat and having only had a banana for breakfast - it was definitely a challenge, it wasn't long before we both soon regretted not taking the easy option of the cable car...

We soon reached the top though and as the wall came into view we both picked up the pace so we could both take our first steps onto the Great Wall. And - Wow! It was a pretty amazing feeling to be up there, surrounded by huge mountains covered in green trees with glimpses of the wall snaking out over them as far as you could see in either direction (The Chinese definitely wanted to keep the Mongols out!). Although we had made it to the wall, walking it was no easy task. No flat bits, just ups and downs and uneven steps which were strategically placed and purposely built to be hard work to walk on - specifically for the Mongolian horses and to trip up any of those cheeky Mongols who might have actually breached the wall.

We chose this site as it was supposed to be one of the lesser touristy sites, so whilst there was other people up there, you would occasionally get a patch of wall to yourself. We'd heard about the amount of hawkers selling water and gifts up and down the wall, but we didn't mind them. They would clap and salute you as you reached the top of the steep bits and wave a china flag around. They also offered to take your photo for free, which we soon realised was in the hope that we would return their kind gesture and look at their stall. It wasn't too hard a sell and they usually accepted it when you said no.

We walked about 4kms west, which although not too far, but due to the uneven ground and the hilly layout of the wall it was pretty hardwork and incredibly tiring - not made any easier by the baking sun. As other tourists began to thin out and make their way back to the entrance, it wasn't too long before we were completely alone and had the wall and the stunning views all to ourselves. With only stopping for the occasional breather and water break, we eventually got to where our section of the wall stopped and reached a sign that told us we weren't allowed any further...Ha! A pezzy sign wouldn't stop the Mongols though! And Bill would have been proud as we strolled straight past the sign and carried on regardless up the next vertical steep and unrestored section of the wall. This took us up to the highest point and as we got to the top there was just one Chinese lady clapping us, saying 'welcome to the wall!' She had somehow managed to get her stall right to the top, which sold the usual tourist tat, but most importantly, and most brilliantly she sold ice cold beer. We didn't care that it was about 100 times more expensive than at the bottom, this was a beer that was well deserved!

So apart from the one Chinese lady who soon nodded off once she had made her sale and before we were to begin our slow, knee battering descent to the bottom, we sat drinking our beer in the sunshine, staring out into the distance, appreciating what we were doing and where we were. A very nice moment.

Following our Great Wall challenge, we witnessed first hand the fine and delicate art of Chinese queuing. Whilst waiting for the bus to take us back to the city (it was this bus or no bus till the following day), we realised that there were probably more people waiting than there were seats. Add this to the fact that since waiting for the bus, a massive thunder storm had erupted which meant that the 'queue' was none existent as everybody had packed themselves tightly under the 1metre x 2metre bus shelter to avoid the downpour. So when the bus started to turn up the road we wondered how this was going to pan out. Would everybody simply file back into the order that they had arrived at the bus stop? Would we be mature and let people get on in their rightful order? Perhaps we would agree to let the elderly or the young mothers and their children get on first? Not a chance!

As the bus eased to a stop and opened it's front door everybody sprinted forwards like bees to honey. Kids were getting squashed, old ladies were being pushed over, it was everyone for themselves - it was history of the Trans-Siberian Train station stop repeating itself again. It was brutal! We too got caught in the moment and joined in to get that precious seat. Nobody wanted to spend two hours on a bus to Beijing stood up, or worse - being left at the wall. Not after all those steps. It was manic. Chaos. Babies were being used as bait, stolen from their parents and thrown over the crowd, just so that people could get the lead. It was then that the backdoor very slyly opened, but it wasn't just us that noticed, it was everyone else - Damn! Do we stay surrounded by the swarm of people squishing themselves into the front entrance or do we run towards the back. It was a risk, but we took it and it worked - we managed to get on the bus and get a seat. Phew! We made it. We sat triumphantly in our seat realising our strength and determination had been tested by the Chinese and we had passed.

It was at this point we looked around the rest of the bus, expecting to see fighting over seats and we realised that the bus was actually quite big. In fact there were a few spare seats towards the back. Oh well, we still won.

Three days wasn't nowhere near long enough in Beijing and we haven't been able to do half of the main sites, but what we have seen and done has been really interesting and we are glad that we are spending a month wandering around this massive country. It was however soon time to move on and begin our trip south - the best way to move around this massive country is by train, and what better way to experience train travel than on our first Chinese sleeper train to Pingyao...

Going from our first class train on the Trans-Siberian, to our second class sleeper was always going to be, let's just say 'different'. On boarding our carriage, we were greeted by our very dirty and very smelly squat toilet which was to serve us and our fellow 64 passengers! It had actually crossed our mind before getting onto any of these trains, how it would be possible to go to the 'squat loo' on a moving, juddering and very rickety train - the last thing that you want to be doing is touching the walls (there are marks and stains on those walls that we wouldn't even want to begin describing to you), but there it was, a nice firm handrail drilled into the wall to keep us steady. Now that was a slight relief! The 66 beds in our carriage were in bay's of 6 with top, middle and bottom bunks - no walls, no curtains and absolutely 100% no privacy, all squashed into one very warm and very stuffy carriage. We soon realised that there would be no sleep for the next 12 hours, as all we could hear was the sound of people already snoring, people hocking up their phlegm and depositing it onto the floor, and there was the pungent smell of instant noodles and sweaty feet lingering in the air. Oh, how we longed for our own little 2-berth cabin that we had taken for granted on our journey across Russia in. Ramming ourselves onto the little pull down seat on the edge of the corridor, it wasn't long before we heard the whistle outside and the train began to start to crawling away from Beijing city. It was at this point Claire turned to David, and with real sincerity in her voice said 'we're getting too old for this ****'. Ha!

Things we have learned
1. Due to no doors and only 3 foot walls there isn't much privacy in a Chinese public toilet.
2. Like Laos men, Chinese men enjoy lifting their shirts exposing their bellys to cool down in the sunshine.
3. The journey to the train station to buy tickets is twice as long and ten times more frustrating if, after queuing up for half an hour, spending 20 minutes trying to translate your journey to finally get everything ready to book, it turns David forgot the passports.


Dave's Transport stats so far:
Planes used - 1
Buses used - 3 (+2)
Trains used - 3
Metros/subways used - 13 (+12)
Cars used - 3 (+1)
Russian Campervans used 1
Horses used - 1
Camels used - 1