Completely mind-blowing. Just thinking about Beijing a week after we moved on from there immediately leaves me short of breath, and definitely with no idea where to start writing about it. In terms of a sensory experience, I think a week in Beijing was like a cross between being at a festival, going to Alton Towers and watching something at the IMAX all at the same time, and I'm sure that isn't even doing it justice. It was utterly unlike anywhere else I've ever been, and a fantastic in-your-face introduction to a totally new and different culture. I've never had a week quite like it, the exhilaration, the laughter, the amazing sights and sounds, the incredible people. So, as I say, not sure where to start, but I'll have a go...

My biggest tip for anyone considering visiting Beijing: rent bikes. It's massive (in terms of the total municipality, roughly the size of Belgium, I read somewhere), walking will get you nowhere. The subway system will take you further, but you'll be underground and you'll miss it all. Those on two wheels, however, rule the city! In their thousands, so the best thing to do is join them! And it's perfectly safe. Apart from the lack of cycling helmets. And the lack of bike lights. Oh, and the bikes coming at you the wrong way down the cycle lanes. Um, and now I think about it, the cars cutting across the cycle lane traffic when their traffic lights are seemingly red. And in all fairness I should probably include the bikes coming at you the right way down the cycle lanes when you're going down the wrong way. In fact, picturing it clearly now, there's the sheer quantity of vehicles, both of two wheels and four (and three, actually), coming at you from all directions, honking horns and ringing their bells, which could slightly affect road safety. Ah, and one more thing, the complete disregard for any regulations whatsoever. Whatever they might have been, I have no idea, there would be no way of telling, as no-one was adhering to them! Absolutely brilliant fun! And when in Rome... I think we were more reckless than the Chinese after a day or two! But, despite what you'd expect (this is for any parents reading, everyone else can move on), we didn't see a single accident the whole time we where there. I think because the roads are so chaotic, everyone using them stays so acutely aware of what's around them that the multitude of close shaves remain exactly as such and no worse. Paula rode into the back of me once, when I braked suddenly to avoid taking out a pedestrian, but that doesn't count. So, yes, rent bikes, as it's such good fun, and you actually end up seeing the real city, and plenty of it.

Smog and sunshine, definitely worth a mention. Again, I've never before seen anything like it. If anyone in London or Manchester thinks they've seen proper smog, you haven't. Proper smog prevents you from seeing things fifty yards away. It's like fog, but there's no moisture swirling in the air, the haze is totally consistent, you can't feel it, and yet it's strangely thin enough to allow the sun through in the form of a simple, clear orange circle. Really strange, particularly smack in the middle of the day, when you have to remind yourself that that's the case because the light is so dusk-like. And then just as we were beginning to think maybe this was how things were all the time, the smog lifted, after two days if I recall rightly, and we had the rest of the week in sunshine! Suddenly the city had a skyline and we had some perspective! And I'm actually glad we had the chance to witness the contrast, even if life in the smog is meant to be like smoking 70 cigarettes a day.

In fact, contrasts leads me onto something else, before I forget. Beijing, of course, is a global city (helped forward in no small way I'm sure by the task of hosting the Olympics a couple of years ago), and a massive one at that. The number of huge, expensive looking hotels is phenomenal, I can't imagine where all the people come from to fill them. The blocks of office towers go on and on and on, all twenty, thirty storeys or more. And the huge signs on them show you that all the heavyweight global corporations are playing their part in this booming economy. The subway is slick and modern (and constantly full, despite trains consistently running every couple of minutes). Main roads have three or four lanes on each side, and teem with traffic all day. Yet within this mega-city, incredibly, a sub-system of "hutongs" exists. Tiny alleyways, a massive network of them, run in between the main roads and buildings, supporting the people who have always lived there, with thriving market stalls, small businesses and homes, all single-storey and a long way from modern, and everyday non-city-folk, in a fashion that you'd expect in a small, countryside town. Normally, I'm sure the growth of a city would see this sort of life replaced by bigger and bigger roads and buildings, but for some reason, in Beijing they've somehow managed to fit all the new stuff around this, so you can literally walk from a park of suited office workers next to a gleaming office tower one minute, into a dirty alleyway of smoking, cards-playing, shabbily dressed old men, sitting by a portable barbecue with some chicken wings on it, the next. Totally amazing.

And I think the final thing, before mentioning a few specifics, has to be the people. In fact I've probably done them an injustice by not mentioning them first. And so many of them! Unbelievable, there are just so many people, everywhere, all the time! But that's not really the point, I've digressed. The point is that the people of Beijing (who I'd guess at being representative of the people of China, but that remains to be seen) are so incredibly friendly. And polite and courteous, and seemingly without ever knowing the concept of malice. Everyone just treats everyone else with total respect, and it's like one big team all working together. You wouldn't normally advise wandering down city back alleys in the dead of night in almost any other country in the world, but in Beijing we never felt anything other than completely and utterly safe (apologies to any grammar enthusiasts for the repeated use of the word "utterly", but I don't know any adequate synonyms and talking about Beijing keeps requiring it!). People help each other, no-one appeared to ever argue or fight, everyone smiled at us and no-one scowled at us, and it seemed that this was their way between themselves as well. And beyond this, people seem to have so much fun! We came across groups of people in the city parks just dancing, singing karaoke, playing games, and all without the aid of alchohol! Us Europeans would never behave the same way without the aid of a few pints or bottles of wine, but they do it sober, in the middle of the day! We've seen the same thing since, with tour groups of Chinese tourists, all middle aged, laughing, joking, having water fights, and generally behaving as you'd expect a bunch of kids on a school trip to. Amazing. I wish you could bottle this attitude and way of life and export it, as it was such an incredibly refreshing thing to witness, and something I wouldn't previously have believed could exist.

Specifically, we went to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, up to the Olympic area to see the "Birdsnest" stadium and the "Cube", and to the outskirts of Beijing to see the Summer Palace (although the latter was in day two of thick smog, so we didn't really "see" it, we were just there), but as much of a so-called "must see" each of these things were, no one sight came close to being as memorable as the elements of the general experience I've already described. In fact, to be honest, by the time we'd got to the Forbidden City, we were already a bit "templed" out. As attractive as the architecture is, the temples we saw in Beijing were all of a similar style, and the substance of them didn't really grab us, e.g. being from either the Ming or Qing dynasty, some crap, flowery name like "The Temple of Supreme Harmony" or "The Hall of Joyful Longevity", and an accompanying story about how some emperor slept with a maid to conceive a male heir who was hidden from his persistently daughter-bearing wife or something like that. To the point where I realised the other day that in the Lonely Planet's list of top 10 temples, number 1 is the Lama Temple in Beijing, which kind of just passed us by, and number 9 is the Dai Temple in Tai'an, our next stop after Beijing, where we stayed in a hostel room about a hundred yards away watching films for an entire day and a half, before climbing a mountain the other side of it. Oh well, at least we saved two quid admission fee each, even if I Am Legend wasn't the best use of a couple of hours we've ever made!

Ah, I nearly forgot about the Great Wall, though! The Great Wall is great (take that, grammar lovers!). Just knowing that it goes on for thousands of miles makes it so, and on top of that, the landscapes around the sections of wall within easy reach of Beijing are spectacular. We had a fantastic day that day, heading off solo on the local buses, rather than taking an organised tour, with fellow hostel-mates and ex-Sheffield Uni and therefore immediately very cool couple Edd and Kirsty. The sun was out, the views were amazing, the company was great and we had an all round smashing day!

At this stage of our travels I'm bringing hostel dorm-mates review to a close. I'm bored of it now, and it's become less relevant, as the people we're meeting are a bit more random than just fellow hostel mates and the places we're staying are just not really as hostel-like. But a mention must go to our Beijing cycle posse! Jamie with the hat from London (many thanks for the entire Lonely Planet series on pdf for free), Stephanie from Germany, Martin from London (briefly, on the hostel-owned deathtrap), and the Swedes, Erik and Lazarus (quality names). It was a great ride, guys!