It's hard to imagine that we have spent over one month in China. I almost feel like a local but haven't yet made the prerequisits of citizenship by taking-up cancer sticks, spitting flem like a fountain nor pissing in the path of others in the streets.

We have spent the last week in Beijing, awaiting for our next tour group to commence (which apprantly is tonight). The remainder of the week has been spent in a close proximity to our "red light" hotel. Not much action to recall, so I hope this email doesn't seem monotonous.

On Wednesday, we left the hotel foyer to be confronted by a indian (male, late 30's) who claimed the communciation bridge between himself and the rest of the population was almost non-existant. I then made the obvious observation that nor I am chinese and that communication is like a game of sherrades. He then progressed to say in succession; "where are you going", "wait for me, I'm coming too" and "what is your room number". It sounded like a great introduction to "this is your life" TV show, but myself and Riss felt very insecure. This wierdo was staying at our hotel and wanted to know our room number? I mummbled some quick words, hoping that they were incomprehendable (and as a plausable escape route) as we dashed out of the hotel. Freak.

From then on we had to avoid this strange indian. Later that day at the hotel, we had to cover some serious amounts of dirty washing. Some clean articles of clothing were from Shanghai, but stank like a camel impound. I was surely convinced that the dryer used in Shanghai was used to spin the crap from babies napies. I enquired at front reception to locate the "self-service" washing machine but with a look of a feline (i.e. curious look, but lacked attention when communication become to difficult), she braisely said "tzoo" before walking away. Now this could mean "two" in the english language or "four" in mandarin (prounced tzee).

Back to the room, grabbed the dirty washing and then to the lift to try floor two. Button would not work after numerous attempts. Tried level four (tzee) to be pointed to level five (our floor) by the resident cleaner. Each hotel has a resident cleaner assigned to each floor. Their daily duties still remain an untold mystery, as their only physical activity occurs in the morning. Level five cleaner knew no english apart from "T-shirt". I had more important soiled articles to clean than a bloody T-shirt, and was fed up after physically rubbing my bum (undies) with my fist like it was a bar of soap. No comprehende. The rest of the afternoon was spent washing in our tiny room, hanging a mountain-load of clothes across any hook, bar or chair in the room.

Our room was located at the end of a dog-leg (a small corridor 45degrees at the end of a main corridor). We left mid-afternoon and found the crazy indian around the corner locked out of his room adjacent to the lift. Our movement automatically slid in to ninja stealth as we crepth the other way down a passage of stairs to avoid contact with crazyman. Our decent was stopped mid-way after level three, due to a heap-load of in passable garbage. Pure filth. Out of the stariwell, we fast-walked to the other end of the corridor to the other stairwell. A clear passage to ground floor.

Down two flights of stairs, we set foot on level two. It was dark and hazy with a indescribable stench. Three men were siting our end of the corridor. Two beside the elevator squating with faces that would certainly pass the audition to the next hollywood zombie movie. The third guy sat opposite with a sterotypical look of a pimp daddy!! The brothel was not only linked to the hotel, it was the second floor!! Pimp daddy looked back in a gaze of confusion, characteristics are obviously universal with gold condements to neck and hands. The corridor was covered in a mosaic of mirrors and a tinge of red glowed from the far end of the corridor. By the time I looked down to gain my foot holding on the next stair, Riss was already gone.

I imagined later how funny it would of been if the level two button worked in the elevator. I would of confronted pimp daddy with five bags of washing and rubbed my bum like a bar of soap.

Thursday's destination was the Lama temple. An attempt to become more culturally aware of buddhism. The complex covered a myriad of temples with a thick swarm of incense lingering the air. The idea is to take three sticks of incense, light them in a big bronze coldron and make bow movements (not bowel) at each and every one of ten temples. Say there were 300 people and were all buddist's. That's a total of 3000 sticks of incense that were burning. The architecture was beautiful to admire but the smoke made my eyes water.

Next destination was the Drum and Bell Tower. A cultural influence from Ghengas Khan during his occupation of China. Drum and Bell Tower's are commonly close to one another in each large city and their literal meaning depict the function of its existance. With only enough energy to climb one, we picked the drum tower as the sound of drums sounds better than the banging of one bell. The top of the tower covered a large space of say 30 drums each the size of a large wine barrel. One stood out from the crowd with a "Guiness" stamp fixed to it. Im sure that Ghengas Khan didn't conquer the guiness brewery, but it actually is the biggest drum in the world. wowwww...it must of taken a big pig to have a skin that large in diametre.

Another drum from the 30 odd stood out from the crowd aswell. It was old an tattered, slashed and looked like a collection of fire-wood. There was a sign in front with manadrin and engish printed. It claimed to be an original drum from an old chinese dynasty in the 1600's. Next minute a chinese man grabbed my arm and pointed to the last sentance of chinese characters then pointed to the english translation. It read "the drum was destroyed by anglo-saxon allied forces". Not the welcoming I was after and retreated to the outside deck of the drum-tower.

Outside was a blanket of pollution which has covered the city a large proportion of our stay in Beijing. The sky is a greyish-brown and nothing can bee seen past one kilometre. When you blow your nose, you can be surely convinced that you have worked in a coal mine. Black on white tissure, need I say more. We have watched many segments of Mongolia on TV. Vast open spaces and CLEAN AIR!!! You can literrally see for miles. Pollution has been existant the whole time we have been here, predominantly in Beijing. Every evening back at the hotel, you must clean your face of this application of carbon-monoxide mascarra.

After a quick demonstration of drums from the locals we ventured outside to be greeted by a guy on a rusty third-world bike. Like a tuk-tuk in Thailand but they're called rik-shaw's here. He approached with a display folder that looked as old as his bike which assumed this trip has been performed many times before. It was a tour of the hutongs (chinese for alleyway). An hour and a half of viewing old houses and villas that date back 600 years.

It was a very interesting trip down small alleyways, and just as ammusing for the locals to see westeners interested in their homes. We stopped at one place that was about 400 years old which is indicated by the intricate chinese art at the front door. We walked through the door which gained access to a quadrangle that forked into many doorways. Next minute a lady walked out and greeted us in chinese. She was pleased to see us and invited us into their house. Our cyclist was our translater as we tried to communicate with the family. They were empty-nesters with a son high-up in the ranks of the liberation army. I then sat astute and humberly drank my green tea she made me. She provided a supply of chinese food, one that looked like kangaroo poo that had similar texture but tasted pretty damn good (I haven't eaten kanga poop by the way). Before I knew it, we were shown photo albums, like I was a long lost relative. It was great to mingle with the locals. I've got photographic proof too.

He then rode us to a funky part of town called lotus lane (as shown with Catrina Rowntree in bikini #243 on getaway). It was the place we have been looking for. A huge lake with surrounding bars to just chill-out from the rat-race. The next three-days have been predominantly spent here idling time (one on a paddle boat). The time in-betweem has been itimatly spent with eating Beijing Duck uhhhhgggggg....ggg.... and buying DVD's.

As mentioned at the beginning of this elogated email, the VODKATRAIN commences tonight. I have found that there are two males and two females beside us on the trip (I saw receptions hotel list). We hope they are as great as the bunch of people we had on our last journey.

Write more soon...Hope everything's OK. Keep sending those emails too, I need some ozzie news.

Cheers,
Hatton