Chinese currency: Yuan 10.62
(CNY) to £1 (GBP) Aug 2012
Leaving Nepal was difficult, on a late night flight to
Beijing. It’s always funny to see the rest of the passengers checking in when
going to a new country, you get a little taste of the place before you get
there. There was a huge group of Chinese students, all with bright pink
matching t-shirts being herded together by a women with a clipboard, a bright
pink sign and a loudspeaker, telling them where to go, what to do, when to laugh and maybe even what to think. I hadn’t done a stitch of research on the place but no matter, I
was only going to be there for three days before boarding the train.
My original plan was to spend three weeks in China before catching the Trans Siberian Railway to Moscow, but I loved Nepal so much that I left out China and got to Beijing the day that my booked trip started. I was joining a tour for the first time on my trip... organised by a company called Vodkatrain (Sundowners Overland) that specialised in Trans Siberian, Trans Mongolian and Silk Road train journeys. I wanted the last month of my trip to be as hassle free and painless as possible so that I wouldn’t have to need a holiday once I came home as is so often the case with travelling, so I was doing this the easy way, someone organising my tickets, transfers, accommodation, and with a local guide (usually a local student from the city) to meet as I got off at each stop. The trip lasts for 23 days with three days at the start and the finish to look around Beijing and then Moscow.
My original plan was to spend three weeks in China before catching the Trans Siberian Railway to Moscow, but I loved Nepal so much that I left out China and got to Beijing the day that my booked trip started. I was joining a tour for the first time on my trip... organised by a company called Vodkatrain (Sundowners Overland) that specialised in Trans Siberian, Trans Mongolian and Silk Road train journeys. I wanted the last month of my trip to be as hassle free and painless as possible so that I wouldn’t have to need a holiday once I came home as is so often the case with travelling, so I was doing this the easy way, someone organising my tickets, transfers, accommodation, and with a local guide (usually a local student from the city) to meet as I got off at each stop. The trip lasts for 23 days with three days at the start and the finish to look around Beijing and then Moscow.
I had two flights to my destination with China Southern Airlines at 11pm that night, Kathmandu to Guangzhou which was four hours and then
from there to Beijing taking three hours, so I only managed small amounts of broken sleep. On the
second flight I was for some reason placed in business class and I didn’t want the
flight to end, just wanting to sleep comfortably on their big chairs. The
aircraft and flight attendants were nothing special, just a standard airline
that was neither memorable nor bad. But when I got to Beijing early in the morning I
waited in vain for my bag to come by me on the carousal because it wasn’t there. It
took a really long time of frustrating gesturing, drawing on bits of paper and arm waving at the luggage
enquiry desk, using print outs of Google
translate and all manner of communication other than English to work out what
happened, to find out that my bag was held back in Guangzhou due to a dangerous
object inside it. What was the object? Further communication efforts revealed
it was a lighter, they held my checked in luggage back because there was a
lighter buried somewhere inside it. Was this a joke? Has anyone ever heard of a
lighter in a checked in bag being forbidden? I gave them a description of my
bag, the combination to the lock on it and permission to open it and remove the
catastrophic object. They promised it would be there the next day and I could
collect it, and I left only in a mild state of panic knowing that I was leaving
Beijing two days later. I was thinking to myself that I had had no problems whatsoever on my entire trip with luggage or cancelled flights or losing anything, so maybe it was about time.
Working out the subway in Beijing is super easy, they have
signs in English and if you've been on other train or subway systems in any other
city it’s intuitive. It’s also much cheaper than taxi’s and way quicker than
buses. I was heading to Jade Hostel near the Forbidden City, without my
luggage. They had sent me instructions in
English and Chinese which really saved me a lot of hassle, so I could stop and ask people and point it out to them.
Jade Hostel is around a 15 min walk from Tienanmen subway station, but when I came out the
subway I got really confused, everything was so huge, and modern. Coming from
Kathmandu to Beijing was a culture shock to say the least. Huge roads teeming with shiny new cars (all following the
road rules), huge skyscrapers and government buildings and everything new and
clean and hot and in working order. There were no signs in English, and the map I had with names of the roads in
Chinese didn’t correlate with the signs I saw, so it was a bit of a job finding
my way at first. I just couldn’t take in how big and intimidating everything was.
I found Jade Hostel eventually, tired from travelling all night with no sleep, the lost bag fiasco and the assault on the senses of such a place. The hostel is okay, more like a hotel but with dorm beds. The rooms were clean and the beds decent, the staff could speak English which really helped too. There wasn’t an atmosphere of a hostel though, just a big reception and an empty restaurant, this wasn’t a Western style hostel with a vibrant atmosphere of backpackers so if that’s what you’re looking for in Beijing then Jade hostel isn’t it. I went straight to sleep in the air conditioned room and woke up to find Julia in the room, a friendly Australian girl. We chatted for a bit and then discovered that she was also in Beijing for a Vodkatrain journey, but unfortunately not the same one I was on. Her group were doing a shorter version of my trip, with fewer stops. We spent the next couple of days wandering around Beijing and taking a trip to the Great Wall together.
I met the group I was going to spend the next 23 days with that evening. There were four Australian girls; twin sisters Bec and Aimee and their friend Jen, and Alison who was taking a long holiday from work, all of them from Sydney. Julia’s group were also all Australian except for one British girl, and I discovered this was because it was an Australian company and all Australians take the route from Beijing as it was closer to them, and on to Moscow. The people starting in Moscow and went the other way were mainly Europeans which made sense. I got in touch with the tour company and asked them if I could change to Julia’s group because I really got along with her and they were all more my age, my group were much younger than me and didn't have too much else in common. But they said I couldn’t change that late in the day as everything was planned and booked.
I found Jade Hostel eventually, tired from travelling all night with no sleep, the lost bag fiasco and the assault on the senses of such a place. The hostel is okay, more like a hotel but with dorm beds. The rooms were clean and the beds decent, the staff could speak English which really helped too. There wasn’t an atmosphere of a hostel though, just a big reception and an empty restaurant, this wasn’t a Western style hostel with a vibrant atmosphere of backpackers so if that’s what you’re looking for in Beijing then Jade hostel isn’t it. I went straight to sleep in the air conditioned room and woke up to find Julia in the room, a friendly Australian girl. We chatted for a bit and then discovered that she was also in Beijing for a Vodkatrain journey, but unfortunately not the same one I was on. Her group were doing a shorter version of my trip, with fewer stops. We spent the next couple of days wandering around Beijing and taking a trip to the Great Wall together.
I met the group I was going to spend the next 23 days with that evening. There were four Australian girls; twin sisters Bec and Aimee and their friend Jen, and Alison who was taking a long holiday from work, all of them from Sydney. Julia’s group were also all Australian except for one British girl, and I discovered this was because it was an Australian company and all Australians take the route from Beijing as it was closer to them, and on to Moscow. The people starting in Moscow and went the other way were mainly Europeans which made sense. I got in touch with the tour company and asked them if I could change to Julia’s group because I really got along with her and they were all more my age, my group were much younger than me and didn't have too much else in common. But they said I couldn’t change that late in the day as everything was planned and booked.
So I had three days in Beijing to roam around and soak it
in. The main thing to do was of course to go see the Great Wall. There are a
few different areas to visit the wall, and it is possible to do on your own but
the easiest way and not that much more expensive than going it alone is to go in a minibus organised by
your hostel with a group. The cheapest and easiest option if you do want to go on your own is
to go to Badaling on a
local bus but there are thousands of local tourists doing that and you won’t get any
part of it to yourself at all. I decided to go to Jinshanling which is a three
hour minibus trip away from Beijing. I organised it through my hostel at Yen300
(we worked out to do it ourselves would be around Yen200 and would take ages
figuring out buses and taxis) and it was definitely well worth it. Julia and I
decided to go together while the Aus girls took a different, closer trip to Mutianyu where you can take a
toboggan ride down the hill.
Jinshanling
is far enough out of the city to feel like you're properly in the countryside being a few hours outside of Beijing, and it's peaceful and quiet. It was a glorious, sunny day with wall to wall blue sunshine and the bright
green rolling mountainous landscape stretching out as far as the eye could see
almost completely uninterrupted, except for the snaking grey road appearing and
disappearing among the folds of the landscape. There was no city or buildings
in site, which made it feel extra remote and special. You could look out at
kilometres of wall hugging the high points of the hills and not see a single
person, and there were parts of the wall still in its original state and then
parts that were renovated to their former glory, so it was a good taste of all states of the wall.
You can hike along the wall for around 4km to another section but I
think that was recently closed, but people still trek to points that are
deserted and camp there. It isn’t fun to mess with highly strung Chinese
officials who can’t speak English though! The sun was scorching hot,
and we walked briskly at first up and along the undulating wall, up stairs and
through corridors and under archways, and then more slowly as the day wore on, gasping in the heat,
trying to make our way to the farthest point we could before having to turn
back to make our bus.
 |
| The road to Beijing |
There were little sun shrivelled old men and women with
their identical grass hats and flowered blouses selling drinks from ice buckets
along the way, most of the bottles of water were solid blocks of ice. They were
much needed, the late summer sun was making us dehydrate like crazy with the steep
extreme steep staircases and lack of shade. But how lucky we were
to have this superb blue sky and sunshine, most of the time Beijing is grey and
smoggy. It was fantastic to be amongst only a tiny handful of people on the
wall too, the further we went the less people we saw until there was nobody, sometimes just a man in the corner of a facade with an ice bucket of lemonade flavoured
ice pops and water.
Most tourists who visit the wall are Chinese. We were told
that there aren't many days holiday generally given and not many people have the money to
travel abroad, so there is a lot of internal tourism. We were an anomaly as Western
tourists, and people would often ask to have their photo taken with us or would
(not so) slyly take pictures of us as we walked along, doing all kinds of
hilarious acrobatics to pretend they were taking pictures of something else instead of us when we caught them out.
Included in the cost of the day was lunch in a huge, almost
totally empty Jade Museum / shop. Most tours will take tourists to some kind of
Jade shop but some can be just a cattle market to sell aggressively and ends up annoying most people. Our lunch just happened to be in the
museum and we weren’t herded around to try buy anything, although there were
some beautiful pieces there. Lunch was yum, rice and sweet and sour fried stuff
and warm spicy cucumber. We had to pay for drinks though, Yen10 for water when
it’s usually Yen3 so it wasn’t technically a ‘free’ lunch. The minibus was fast
and comfortable though, and the roads! So smooth and without potholes, I had
genuinely forgotten what it was like to drive in a straight line on a smooth
road, I nodded off like a little baby because of the gentle lull of the car,
something I hadn’t done in months. We left at 7am and had around four
hours on the wall which was perfect, and got back after lunch around 5pm. It’s
a good day out and I can recommend it.
The rest of the time my tour group of the four Aussie girls hung out with our local guide for Beijing, Snow. They went to the Forbidden City and saw Tiananmen Square which is the main focal point of Beijing and has huge cultural and historical significance (and only walking distance from our hostel). But I wanted to see more of the living culture of Beijing since I only had one day left, and not so much the deadened, museum-like history that was stamped and approved by the rulers. If I had more time I would have definitely checked out those things, but as it was I had a great time riding around on the subway, getting out at random stations and just wandering around looking at markets, side streets and lanes trying to soak up and understand a little of what made China's major city tick.
I went to the main markets to see if I could find some funky, outlandish clothes but there really wasn't much like that. Beijing seemed very conformist to me, I didn't see a lot of individuality. They had this sign up everywhere, sometimes on huge billboards: Patriotism, Innovation, Inclusiveness, Virtue. Beijing Spirit.
It didn't feel too different from any other major, first world city. The underground was packed, huge and hot but it worked well. There were huge buildings everywhere that weren't particularly ugly nor beautiful. Everything was modern, but sometimes a tiny shred of unforced and unguarded historical culture would seep through somewhere, reminding me that I was in fact in China. Everything is in Chinese but most people (always young) I stopped could speak a few words to help me in the right direction. Not speaking the language isn't a huge hinderance when exploring this city at all, as long as you have a good map. There is wifi everywhere too but many things are blocked, mainly Facebook and most of Google's products, like documents or Blogger. You can use Google search, but many things are unsearchable and you may even get a threat to have Google use cut off if you continue to try search for forbidden things.
I found a great Beijing style fast food place to have lunch in. Everyone sits in rows, and you get your own section with a hot plate with a pot of boiling water and a ladle. You then choose from a selection of soup bases, meat or fish, vegetables and sauce. You then get this huge plate of vegetables like carrot, spinach, green beans, mushrooms, lettuce and some things I didn't recognise, and hidden amongst them are dumplings, crab sticks and tofu. I had shrimps and these came raw on a huge plate of their own, way too much food for one person but it was all so good I stuffed my face until I could almost get most of it down. I had to get help from the bemused group of businessmen sitting next to me, they showed me how to cook all the raw food in my broth and then use the small bowls for dipping. It was a lot of fun to sit there cooking all this delicious food and then eating it fresh. I got quite a few glances, I guess most tourists would go to Macdonalds or Subway instead of the more difficult (but way more fun) China style fast food place.
Julia and I did some night time wandering too and found a night food market. There were many stalls all lined up next to each other, but they all sold pretty much the same thing so they were probably all run by the same company. There was a lot of sea creatures on sticks and tentacles of octopus or squid bursting out of every container, and lots of other weird ick looking meat displays. They seem to have a real obsession with seafood or any kind of animal product, I didn't like looking at it. I had some corn on the cob and some dumplings, and we tried to sit on the stairs of a big hotel but we got shoed off by a man who made gestures to show us that people pissed all over the stairs at night, so we had a lucky escape. The streets where buzzing on the huge main road with lights and shops open and the market, even though it was only a Tuesday night. We had some really bright fruit covered in sugar too and had a little sugar rush.
One thing that was really annoying about central Beijing was the amount of people out to scam tourists. A typical one was that a friendly student would start talking to you, pretending to want to practice their English. They are always young, innocent looking and super friendly, so it's really easy to be drawn in. They ask if you want to go to a teahouse and then while you're ordering your tea they order all kinds of food and wine, which you'd probably refuse. Then when they bill comes they force you to pay half, and its always a ridiculously huge amount like 3000 yuan. It happened to poor Julia, she ended up paying over a $150 after hanging out with two girls for the afternoon. I think its the calculating, cold way these people scam, I can handle a pickpocket or bag grabber but this sneaky way of ripping tourists off is really shitty, and must say something of the pride they have for their city and their psyche.
The night before we were set to leave Beijing I still hadn't had my bag. The receptionist at Jade Hostel really tried to help me out by phoning them a few times, and each time getting a different answer. First it was ready for me to pick up, then it was still in Guangzhou and it was on the next flight to Beijing, then the flight was delayed and my bag would be late too, then they actually hadn't sent it to Beijing at all and had lost it, because the luggage label had come off. Then they asked for a new description of the bag which I had to write down again, then they forgot what the 'dangerous' object was (the stupid lighter) that they needed to take out. It was a frustrating song and dance and I thought there really would be no hope, I would spend the next month without my luggage and they would end up sending it to somewhere in Mongolia or deepest Russia and I would never see it again. Just when I thought all was lost after hours of banging mine and the receptionists head against the wall, they all of a sudden said they 'found' a bag matching my description on a conveyer belt in Beijing, and delivered it late that night. When I got it I looked inside and there was no lighter and no one had opened it. Thanks for all that fun China Southern Airways!
In the evening of the third day we got everything together and set off for the train. I was epically excited, the last leg of my journey, the romantic lull of the train and strange lands all lay before me and I couldn't wait to get on the move.
Let the Trans Siberian Railway begin!
Here are the China pics.
The rest of the time my tour group of the four Aussie girls hung out with our local guide for Beijing, Snow. They went to the Forbidden City and saw Tiananmen Square which is the main focal point of Beijing and has huge cultural and historical significance (and only walking distance from our hostel). But I wanted to see more of the living culture of Beijing since I only had one day left, and not so much the deadened, museum-like history that was stamped and approved by the rulers. If I had more time I would have definitely checked out those things, but as it was I had a great time riding around on the subway, getting out at random stations and just wandering around looking at markets, side streets and lanes trying to soak up and understand a little of what made China's major city tick.
 |
| Panoramic view of Tiananmen Square - Wikipedia pic |
I went to the main markets to see if I could find some funky, outlandish clothes but there really wasn't much like that. Beijing seemed very conformist to me, I didn't see a lot of individuality. They had this sign up everywhere, sometimes on huge billboards: Patriotism, Innovation, Inclusiveness, Virtue. Beijing Spirit.
 |
| PATRIOTISM, INNOVATION, INCLUSIVENESS, VIRTUE. BEIJING SPIRIT |
It didn't feel too different from any other major, first world city. The underground was packed, huge and hot but it worked well. There were huge buildings everywhere that weren't particularly ugly nor beautiful. Everything was modern, but sometimes a tiny shred of unforced and unguarded historical culture would seep through somewhere, reminding me that I was in fact in China. Everything is in Chinese but most people (always young) I stopped could speak a few words to help me in the right direction. Not speaking the language isn't a huge hinderance when exploring this city at all, as long as you have a good map. There is wifi everywhere too but many things are blocked, mainly Facebook and most of Google's products, like documents or Blogger. You can use Google search, but many things are unsearchable and you may even get a threat to have Google use cut off if you continue to try search for forbidden things.
I found a great Beijing style fast food place to have lunch in. Everyone sits in rows, and you get your own section with a hot plate with a pot of boiling water and a ladle. You then choose from a selection of soup bases, meat or fish, vegetables and sauce. You then get this huge plate of vegetables like carrot, spinach, green beans, mushrooms, lettuce and some things I didn't recognise, and hidden amongst them are dumplings, crab sticks and tofu. I had shrimps and these came raw on a huge plate of their own, way too much food for one person but it was all so good I stuffed my face until I could almost get most of it down. I had to get help from the bemused group of businessmen sitting next to me, they showed me how to cook all the raw food in my broth and then use the small bowls for dipping. It was a lot of fun to sit there cooking all this delicious food and then eating it fresh. I got quite a few glances, I guess most tourists would go to Macdonalds or Subway instead of the more difficult (but way more fun) China style fast food place.
Julia and I did some night time wandering too and found a night food market. There were many stalls all lined up next to each other, but they all sold pretty much the same thing so they were probably all run by the same company. There was a lot of sea creatures on sticks and tentacles of octopus or squid bursting out of every container, and lots of other weird ick looking meat displays. They seem to have a real obsession with seafood or any kind of animal product, I didn't like looking at it. I had some corn on the cob and some dumplings, and we tried to sit on the stairs of a big hotel but we got shoed off by a man who made gestures to show us that people pissed all over the stairs at night, so we had a lucky escape. The streets where buzzing on the huge main road with lights and shops open and the market, even though it was only a Tuesday night. We had some really bright fruit covered in sugar too and had a little sugar rush.
One thing that was really annoying about central Beijing was the amount of people out to scam tourists. A typical one was that a friendly student would start talking to you, pretending to want to practice their English. They are always young, innocent looking and super friendly, so it's really easy to be drawn in. They ask if you want to go to a teahouse and then while you're ordering your tea they order all kinds of food and wine, which you'd probably refuse. Then when they bill comes they force you to pay half, and its always a ridiculously huge amount like 3000 yuan. It happened to poor Julia, she ended up paying over a $150 after hanging out with two girls for the afternoon. I think its the calculating, cold way these people scam, I can handle a pickpocket or bag grabber but this sneaky way of ripping tourists off is really shitty, and must say something of the pride they have for their city and their psyche.
The night before we were set to leave Beijing I still hadn't had my bag. The receptionist at Jade Hostel really tried to help me out by phoning them a few times, and each time getting a different answer. First it was ready for me to pick up, then it was still in Guangzhou and it was on the next flight to Beijing, then the flight was delayed and my bag would be late too, then they actually hadn't sent it to Beijing at all and had lost it, because the luggage label had come off. Then they asked for a new description of the bag which I had to write down again, then they forgot what the 'dangerous' object was (the stupid lighter) that they needed to take out. It was a frustrating song and dance and I thought there really would be no hope, I would spend the next month without my luggage and they would end up sending it to somewhere in Mongolia or deepest Russia and I would never see it again. Just when I thought all was lost after hours of banging mine and the receptionists head against the wall, they all of a sudden said they 'found' a bag matching my description on a conveyer belt in Beijing, and delivered it late that night. When I got it I looked inside and there was no lighter and no one had opened it. Thanks for all that fun China Southern Airways!
In the evening of the third day we got everything together and set off for the train. I was epically excited, the last leg of my journey, the romantic lull of the train and strange lands all lay before me and I couldn't wait to get on the move.
Let the Trans Siberian Railway begin!
Here are the China pics.
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