‘He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a man’ Mao Zedong

Posted by Sam in China & Tibet, World Trip 2007/8 on 08 26th, 2007 | one comments

The 0830 express from Ulan Baton to Beijing would be my home for the next day. This was my first taste of 1st class as it was the only ticket I could get during the peak season. Still, It was still much cheaper than going from London to Leeds on the train.

The only difference between first and second class is first only has two beds in the compartment and they give you a pack lunch that give the airplanes a run for there money. Who would I be sharing with this time. Well, a very nice American called Bryant who was building a health clinic out in Moran which is a small town in Mongolia I passed on my way to the lake. We struck up a good friendship and hung around together in Beijing, more on that later.

Not so much to talk about the train journey except the Gobi Desert. I have never been so amazed at well…….nothing. Nothing but flat sand and dark blue sky. Its a beautiful but surreal landscape of……..well nothing. I’m not selling it to you am I? Just trust me on this one.

8:45 and the train pulls in to Beijing central train station. This is the first time since Moscow that I had been to a large city and my gosh what a large and busy city it is. 30 million people busy doing things, im not sure what they are busy doing but they are doing it! Walking to our hostel Bryant and I tower above the all the citizen of Beijing as they try and sell us pretty much everything under the sun. From pirate dvds to ‘lady’ massages. Yep, you can get anything in China. They can copy just about anything. Fake Nikes, Gucci, Sony Laptops, iPods and now, Volkswagen cars. Its rather incredible, though i’m not sure I’d like to ride in a copied car.

So after a couple of hours rest Bryant and I were out to explore the city. 1st stop is Tianamen Square, the largest public square in the world. Its ok but not a patch on Red Square. In front of the square is the Forbidden City which I will visit in the next few days.

lts the rainy season in China at the moment, and when it rains my god it rains hard with the most spectacular thunderstorms that I have seen.We spent the rest of the night in a bar enjoying the light show outside and listening to really bad Chinese cover bands doing covers of the beatles, eric clapton and Bananarama. shocking!

The next day I rented a bike and took it for a spin around Beijings hutongs. The hutongs are Beijing’s old court yards and alleyways where many people still live and work. Packed out small restaurants and street stalls selling really cheap food, these are the types of places where the average Beijinger eats. Its a great way to soak up local life and traditions. The sad fact is many of the hutongs are in the centre of the city so when Beijing won the Olympic bid they destroyed many of the hutongs to make way for big shinny skyscrapers or even worse. Convert them in to yuppy homes (oh no Beijing is getting a London docklands) Thankful the government have now stopped pulling them down as they have realised that they are an important tourist attraction.

I thought i better jump on the tourist bandwagon and visit the Forbidden City for the day.

After fighting my way through the thousands and thousands of Chinese tour groups I made it in to the first courtyard. Chinese tour groups are so funny. Lead by a guide who shouts non stop in to a megaphone and makes the group follow him like a pack of sheep. The group is to busy taking photos of ever bloody thing to careless what the guide is telling them.
The Forbidden city is massive so it takes at least half a day to walk around. Its rather impressive but a lot of it is off limits at the moment as they are heavily restoring it in time for the Olympics….. They even built a Starbucks in there. How very communist.

The next day was shopping, Beijing style, basically this means going down the silk market and barging for fake goods or what im told by venders that they are the genuine thing. hmm im not sure you could get a diesel t-shirt for £1 in the UK. Two days later the Diesel badge fell off.

The Day after was one thing I really wanted to see in China, yep you guessed it The Great Wall. Did it disappoint? Hell no! Its one of those places you have to see with your own eyes to see how beautiful it is. I met a really top guy called Greg that I did the 10km hike along the wall with. We opted for the Jinshanling to Simati which is a original part of the wall and hasn’t been restored like the tourist part of the wall just outside Beijing. Its a hard hike as the wall is very steep in places and with the sun bearing down everyone was sweating like Michael Jackson in a playground! Still, we made it in just over 2 hours and what better to celebrated with than a cold beer. It was an amazing day out and a unbelievable feet of Engineering, you just wonder how many people died making it and how they built it on some of the high mountains the wall snakes its way over. One of the best things I have done on this trip so far.

Random things that kept happening to me in Beijing.

1. People stare at you
you can be walking down the street, eating food or browsing in a shop and people are glued to your face. You can feel their eyes burning in the back of your head.

2. Students love to speak English to Westerns.
Its rather sweet but you will never be alone as the just walk where ever you go. The nice thing is they take you to there local hang outs and restaurant which happened to me a couple of times.

3. The most bizarre thing that happened to me is when I hadn’t shaved for a week and was a bit hairy. People young and old kept coming up to me and started to stroke my face and arms. Luckily they didn’t see my chest, they would have had a field day! I still not sure why they did this, maybe its a greeting and i’m meant to do it back to them or maybe they think i’m a real life Chewbacca.

Greg and I went to sample the street food and night life of Beijing, most of you have seen the video of me eating the scorpion but i also tried fried snake which was pretty good as well. Later on we went to the bar district. I can’t really tell you what happened because i don’t remember but the parts I do oh dear. Dancing on the stage to kris kross ‘jump jump’ and rather oddly Rage Against the Machine. The next part i remember was waking up in the hostel toilet at 5am. Dam that Chinese vodka for being 50p a shot.
Having a hang over is not the best thing to have when you have a 10 hour train ride on a Chinese train in 3rd class. That is 10 hours of my life I will never forget….. you will have to wait till the next blog to find out what happened.