China Part 2: Beijing

A great time in a great city:

Apart from the chaos at the train stations in Shanghai and Beijing the journey on the overnight train (10 hours) was almost enjoyable! Beijing was literally a breath of fresh air after Shanghai, namely due to the effort they had put in to reduce pollution for the Olympics, you could actually see the sun in the sky and buildings that were more than 100 meters away. Even though the Olympics had officially finished the town was still in full Olympic mode and on its best behaviour. Rumour has it that the residents of Beijing were given strict instructions of do's and don'ts including: no spitting, no begging, no wearing white socks with black trousers, and to smile at tourists, just some of the funny ones we heard. Visiting the Olympic village was a strange experience, to see the crazy styling of the Birds Nest and the Water Cube in the flesh (although you can't get that close!) makes you realise how much time, effort and money the Chinese put into the Olympics.

Our adventures took us to various temples and palaces including Lama Temple, which is a great example of Chinese Temple building at its best. The main building even holds a huge 27m giant standing Buddha carved out of a single piece of wood, which is quite a sight. We also visited the majestic Forbidden City, which for years was only accessible to Royalty and not meer peasants like ourselves! Tienanmen Square just outside of the Forbidden City is a strange mix, with more security cameras and undercover police than you can count – awaiting the revolution maybe? The Summer Palace was a highlight and is a must see in Beijing, it was built as a present to the Emperor's mother for her birthday, what a gift indeed! It encompasses a huge man made lake and numerous temples and shrines.

We were in a bit of a quandary as to how we were going to visit the Great Wall, there were plenty of tours on offer but they did seem pricey. After some advice from fellow backpackers we decided on visiting the stretch between Jing San Ling and Simatai, by ourselves, without the aid of a tour group. It meant getting a bus to another town, then a taxi to the wall. The bus journey was fine apart from the taxi drivers trying to pry us off before the final stop so that they could charge us an inflated sum to take us the rest of the way. We resisted and got off in the correct place to be confronted by 20 or more cab drivers all screaming for our trade. While negotiating a price we were found by a friendly guy from Spain called Poli who was also going to the wall, so we pretended to know each other so we could split the fare, much to the annoyance of all the other cab drivers who realised they were going to miss out. A fight almost broke out as they tried to stop us getting in a cab together and one of the other drivers tried to steal our keys!

We eventually made it to the wall having picked up a girl (Katie from the USA) on the way who was walking! So the four of us set off in the glorious sunshine and in no time found ourselves standing on one of the most incredible structures to be built by human hands. It was an extremely surreal feeling to look in each direction, to see the wall snaking across the hills and thinking of the history of how it was built, and what the Mongol's must have thought when they first saw it! This section of the wall is less visited, other than a handful of other tourists the only people about were locals trying to make a few Yen selling water, beers and souvenirs. It took us about 4 hours to trek the 10km, past parts of the walls that were nearly ruined, you had to dismount from the wall and skirt around the edge of the crumbling mess, but mostly it was in good condition. Near the end you must cross a rickety bridge across a gorge over a river, before taking a zip wire over the lake – what a great end!

No visit to Beijing would be complete without eating at the infamous Wanfujing Street market. You can buy a vast array of land and sea creatures, on a stick, deep fried. We joined a couple of Hungarian guys (Gabor and Andras) we met at the hostel, first of all we walked along to see what was on offer and whet our taste buds. Some of the different culinary delights included: Scorpions, starfish, silk worm larvae, bulls penis, sheep's testicles and I heard someone mention dog. Andras decided to try some snake, he said it was ok so Fran and I tucked in as well. We then tried some crickets, a centipede and Fran finished off with some Seahorses (yes that is Seahorses, 3 of the little fellas, and she claims to still regret it!). I have to say that nothing I tried was particularly nasty in taste or texture, but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat any of it again either!

Our last night in Beijing was spent with new friends from the hostel, Johannes twisted my arm into going out for a few drinks so we visited the area by a lake that is packed to the rafters with bars and clubs, many with live music spilling onto the streets. Being backpackers the cheapest option was to buy beers from a street vendor and soak up the ambience as we walked around. We finished the night with 2 for 1 cocktails in a bar, where we learnt a new dice game that the Chinese go crazy for!

Overall our experience of Beijing was very memorable, we would definitely recommend a visit as it is a beautiful and exciting city, which retains its historic integrity whilst also embracing the future and making tourists feel a part of it all.