Beijing is a city of 18 million people. It's polluted, crowded and manic, but it has a certain charm about it that I can't quite place. When we are not standing in winding queues, dodging crazy vehicles on highways or being elbowed out of the way on the subway trains, we are playing hopscotch with the globs of saliva being hucked up and spat onto the footpaths by every second person who walks by.
The last time I was here, I regretted not having enough time to visit many of the tourist attractions in the city and beyond. This time however, we have both made up for lost time. We are staying in the Beijing City Central Youth Hostel, which has the marketing line, 'A budget hotel for businessmen and a luxury hostel for backpackers'. Now, we've stayed in many hotels already on this trip, and so I feel I am in a position to offer comment, and I must say, this is definitely not my favourite place to stay, nor does it feel particularly luxurious: the wifi doesn't work, the shared bathroom is dirty and many toilets are broken, the walls are paper thin, and there is more padding on the floorboards than on my mattress. Richard is still traumatised by the Chinese man who climbed up and peered into cubicle while he was in the shower, and who then yelled obscenities in Mandarin before disappearing. So while, I can't confirm its 'luxury' status, I can say that this hotel is cheap, is in a good location, and is more than sufficient for our needs given the small amount of time we actually spend there.
On our first morning in Beijing, we were out the door at 6:29am, on our way to queue for the Chairman Mao Mausoleum at Tian'anmen Square. We arrived at 7:00am, and although the doors didn't open until 8:00am, we found ourselves at the end of a snaking and windy queue of several thousand Chinese people, many of whom felt they deserved better than to wait, and spent their time shoving people out of the way so that they could get closer to the front. We got many weird looks, but we thoroughly enjoyed the two hour shuffle around and around the square until we finally arrived at the memorial hall. Once through security, there was pandemonium; a Chinese free for all, and the faster you could run, with the higher you held your elbows, the better position you could get yourself into. Once we entered the hall, it took all of thirty seconds to be herded past the peacefully sleeping (and eerily waxy looking) corpse of the great leader. We emerged into the sunlight, blinking, shaking off the souvenir vendors, and trying to work out what had just happened and why thousands upon thousands of Chinese tourists make this pilgrimage each day. We shrugged our shoulders and headed back to the hostel.
With our Lonely Planet guide in hand, we soon found ourselves in Beijing's Hutongs, a community of twisting alleyways, built after the destruction of the city by Kublai Khan's forces in the 1300s. We did a self-guided walking tour and found ourselves in some tiny lanes and intricate backstreets, watching the daily life activities of the local Han people who still live there.
Our food experiences in Beijing have been hit and miss:
Miss: On the first night we found no alternative but a small plate of dumplings and then made the obligatory trip to McDonalds when our stomachs were still rumbling.
Hit: Eating Peking Duck in a lovely restaurant where we could watch the chef preparing our food amidst the many duck carcasses hanging on hooks around him.
Miss: Trying to order pork buns for breakfast from a pork bun fast food restaurant, and resorting to taking a photo of the huge pork bun on the shop window to compensate our lack of Mandarin when the waitress gave us a bewildered look.
Hit: The pork belly burger and chips at the Great Leap Brewery. This place is run by an American, has English speaking barmen, a huge expat patronage, and soccer on the television. Needless to say we found ourselves there three nights in a row (although Richard will tell you that it was the soccer rather than the locally brewed beer that was the attraction).
Feeling lazy, and a little anxious of the thought of navigating public transport to three major world heritage sites, we took the easy option, and joined a day tour which visited the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. It didn't matter that we had both seen some of these sites before, as we felt incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to experience them twice.
The Temple of Heaven was peaceful and chaotic at the same time. Built in 1420, and originally the site of the emperor's prayers for good annual harvests, it is now a busy tourist attraction set in a pretty park, where middle aged locals play badminton and chess, dance, do tai chi, practise Peking Opera, and other physical and social endeavours.
The Forbidden City felt like all 18 million Beijing citizens decided to visit it on the same day. We shuffled along in monstrous crowds, through gate after gate, much like I remember doing years ago. Its sheer size is its attraction, and it has apparently 9,999 rooms (many of which are not available to the public).
The Summer Palace was the place I was most excited about. Again, its size is its drawcard, but the parks and gardens are equally awe-inspiring. We were herded through the crowds along the 700m 'Long Corridor' in record time, and found ourselves boarding a dragonboat for the trip across Kunming Lake back to the entrance.
The day tour as a whole was good, but we found that our activities definitely didn't reflect the advertised itinerary (what did we expect by booking through our 'luxury' hostel?). Instead of two hours at each main site, we were rushed through the three places in around 40 minutes each, and the rest of our day was spent being dragged around shopping sites, with hard working salespeople desperately trying to help us part with our money. The Chinese Medicine Clinic, Pearl Factory and Tearooms were all interesting, but it was sad to think we spent more time at these places than the places we'd paid to see. Unfortunately the Chinese tour companies see this as perfectly acceptable, so any complaints would have been in vain.
We planned to take it easy on our final full day in Beijing, Instead, we were on a bus by 9:00am, on our way to the World Heritage Listed Ming Tombs. We visited the Chang Ling tomb, which is the resting place of Emperor Yongle, his wife, and sixteen concubines. He was emperor from 1402-1424, and his Hall of Eminent Favours is now a museum housing many relics excavated from another nearby tomb called Ding Ling. The site was indeed quite grand.
Finally, with our last bit of energy, we visited the National Museum of China. Again, we queued up with the masses, and finally made it into this huge museum. Despite hearing excellent reviews, we were unimpressed, until we came across one particular exhibit. It housed all of the gifts that China had received (since Mao's rule) from foreign countries on world leaders' visits. And it was brilliant. From the exquisite to the downright tacky, we saw an array of absolutely bizarre objects. I am not sure what Mao would have done with a vase from Tajikistan, or a wooden elephant from Kenya, or a silver kangaroo from Australia, but they were all fascinating, and we marvelled at some of the clever ideas, and raised our eyebrows at many others.
After a month in China, we have learnt so much about the history, customs and culture of this country, and we've loved it more than we ever thought we would. We'll be back in Beijing in just under a week for one final hurrah, but in the meantime, we are counting down the minutes until we enter the next phase of our journey: North Korea. We can't even begin to predict what the next week has in store for us!
Another great account of your travels .
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