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I hope this letter finds everyone well. Time has passed so quickly recently that I have only just realised that I haven't written anything for a while. I am at present in Long Tan Hotel in Beijing and I have been here six days so far. I haven't yet had a chance to post off my letter about the Trans-Siberian trip, so I will post both of these letters this afternoon.
Our train pulled into Beijing station last Saturday at about 8:30 a.m.. The station is enormous, but with the help of Professor Li, I managed to escape and find my way to the bus station. I said goodbye to the professor here and promised to ring him later in the week so that we could meet up. Fortunately, because I have a good guidebook from China I knew which bus number I needed for my hotel. But still it was pretty chaotic. As I walked along lots of people came up to me and said “Hello, taxi, hello”. The noise of the traffic wasn't too loud, but this is probably because most Chinese people get around on bicycles. There are apparently some 3 million bikes in Beijing alone.
When the bus finally arrived I showed the conductor a piece of paper with the hotel written out in Chinese. I wanted to make sure that the bus was going the right way. It was. Bus journeys in Beijing are quite an experience. When it stops there is no orderly queue waiting to come on. They just litterly charged on. People getting off have to fight their way out. But bus journeys are so ridiculously cheap. One journey is usually 2 Jiao. (10 Jiao makes one Yuan and eight Yuan makes one pound.)
Once on the bus my next problem, of course, was knowing when to get off. But as it turned out, I could see the hotel a long way ahead, as it was tall and had an English sign on top. From the outside the hotel looked expensive, but I knew from my guidebook that they were cheap beds. The person on reception spoke a little English but unfortunately they said that there were no beds. The receptionist suggested I try the dormitories downstairs as it was a separate company. That is where I am now. In the basement of Long Tan Hotel.
The rooms have three beds and are clean and comfortable. However, the toilets are Asian style, basically a hole in the ground. There are partitions between the cubicles but there are no doors. So, you have to be careful when looking for an empty cubicle. You might get a disturbing surprise. However it is all kept clean in there. I shouldn't complain because it only costs me 15 Yuan, which is only two pounds for one night. This of course means I can afford to stay longer in Beijing. Upstairs, some backpackers are paying 100 Yuan for each night for a double. Really that is still cheaper than a youth hostel in England. My roommates are French. One of them has travelled much the same route as I will be going, so he has been giving me some tips.
During my first day in Beijing, I didn't really do much. I slept a little in the morning then after a lunch of cup noodles I went for a walk in nearby Long Tan Park. The following day I hired a bicycle all day which cost me 10 Yuan. I then cycled around the city to get my bearings. Because so many people travel by bicycle there are special bike roads which are just as wide as the single road. It is very well organised though you do have to watch out for taxis and buses that sometimes cut across you. In town there are a number of bike car parks which are massive and look more like bike rental shops. One of the things that I like about these bicycles is that the padlock is built into the bike and immobilizes the back wheel. Very cool.
One of the first places I stopped at was Jingsham Park. From the top of the hill I had some splendid views of the city. However, because of smog I couldn't really see too far. But below me I had a good overview of the really magnificent Forbidden City where the Emperor used to live. I kept on cycling around, visiting more parts of the city and the famous Tiananmen Square. I stopped for lunch by a roadside stall which had some freshly cooked food. All very cheap. And then just carried on cycling, stopping now and then as and when I felt like it.
Compared to Moscow, Beijing is certainly much more alive and colourful. There are food stalls and shops just about everywhere, and the shopping streets are very similar to what we have in the West. Though a lot more crowded. They also have a MacDonald’s which of course I had to visit as part of my “Macdonald’s tour of the World”. Unlike Moscow, the menu was in Chinese and English so it made ordering very easy. Though because this is China, there is no such thing as queues. Just a huddle around each cashier. For the record a cheeseburger is 4 Yuan and a Big Mac is 8.5 Yuan. Cheap compared to England but really it is cheaper for me to eat at the roadside stalls. But a bonus about the McDonald's restaurant is that they have Western toilets with toilet paper and soap!
I devoted the following day to the Tiananmen Square area. The actual square is massive, and is ideal for the parades. One end is dominated by the familiar Tiananmen Gate which is the entranceway to the Forbidden City. The other end is the giant mausoleum built to hold the body of Chairman Mao. As I had visited Lenin in his small tomb in Moscow, I thought that I might just as well drop in on Mr. Mao. The queue was very long, but it was fast moving so in all it only took 10 minutes from the time I joined the queue to when I left the building. Mao himself looked a bit worse for wear and again a bit like a wax dummy. I only had a glimpse at him as we were ushered by quickly, but outside we had the opportunity to buy postcards and other souvenirs of the mausoleum!
The Forbidden City was off-limits to mere mortals for some 500 years. To enter without permission meant death. Today it is a bit easier, but because I'm a foreigner I had to pay 45 Yuan instead of 5 Yuan. Though I did get the use of a Walkman guide for free. I stopped and started the tape as I walked about and listened to Roger Moore tell me all about the really beautiful gates and palace rooms.
Late afternoon I had time to visit the nearby Lama Temple which I found to be really beautifully painted. The architecture around here is very picturesque. Inside one of the buildings was a giant 18 m high statue of the Buddha.
On Wednesday, I paid for the tour to the Great Wall of China at Badaling. Along the way we stopped off at the Ming Tombs which was basically a hole in the ground. Not really that interesting. But the wall itself was really impressive and certainly worth the trip. Our so-called guide told us that it was the only man-made object that could be seen from the moon and that it stretches over 5000 km long. In many cases the wall has either been taken down or just fallen down. At Badaling it has been renovated for the thousands of tourists which visit every day. Our guide then left us to our own devices for a couple of hours, as she had done at the Ming Tombs. I teamed up with a couple of Israeli girls to explore the wall.
The wall itself is about 8 m high and 6 m wide. It doesn't follow a straight line but wriggles all about, sometimes almost doubling back on itself. We walked along the wall for about an hour but because it was so steep we were really climbing in many places. It was therefore quite exhausting. But the view of the wall disappearing in distance was really overwhelming. Just the scale of the thing was just amazing.
On the way back to the coach we had a close look at some of the stalls. It was all very noisy as each stall-holder was shouting “hello t-shirt hello”, “hello buy souvenir” etc. They were almost pleading with us to buy. As I needed another t-shirt I bought one for 4 Yuan. There were many Chinese and Japanese tourists buying a T-shirt that said “I climbed the Great Wall” in two languages. The one I bought has words on it in Chinese only, which I think is a little more subtle.
I spent Wednesday up at Beijing University. Professor Li had invited me over. His daughter, Li Soug, speaks English really well. After lunch she took me to the nearby Summer Palace. Another beautiful park with a large lake. Because Li Soug bought the tickets it only cost 2 Yuan instead of 25 Yuan. We wandered around the buildings for a while and then hired a boat and went on the lake. Really the only way to escape the crowds. We spent the remainder of the afternoon just wandering around. Back at the professor’s home I had another delicious Chinese meal. I'm beginning to get used to the chopsticks now. I remember what fun we had on the train. The professor had so much difficulty in teaching me as I am left handed and he found it hard to demonstrate.
I was hoping to meet up with Li Sui, who was also on our train but he's still in the country. The original plan was for me to stay with him after four days but as my hotel is so cheap I probably won't do this now. He has rung the Professor and we are going to meet this Saturday.
I found the Chinese to be very inquisitive. Whenever I walk down the street they always stare. First at my face and then at my legs. But as yet it hasn't really been that annoying. However, once I am off the beaten track I think I will be more of a freak show. Unlike Russia there are more Chinese tourist around taking photographs of each other. I have to be careful where I walk in case I walk into a photograph. However, having said that, I have so far featured in quite a few pictures. At the Forbidden City someone came up to me (Japanese I think) and I thought they wanted me to take a picture of him and his wife. But no, he wanted to stand by me whilst his wife took the picture! A queue quickly formed and I had my picture taken at least ten times. The same thing happened a little later on and at the Great Wall.
I have been finding the Chinese money a little confusing as there are two different currencies. Renminbi (RMB) for the locals and Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC) for us. Officially they are worth the same. But on the black market I can exchange 50 FEC for about 70 RMB. The dollar rate in the banks are $1 for 5 Yuan FEC. But it is possible to get $1 for eightYuan RMB. We have to usually pay hotels, train tickets and tourist attractions in FEC. Everything else we can use RMB which is obviously much better value for money. If you buy a 3 Yuan bottle of water with FEC then you pay more than the locals. So I have to make sure I have plenty of both currencies. Changing money is not difficult as in the hotel lobby and in other places, people come up to me very frequently and say “hello change money”.
I have mentioned before that we had to pay more for tourist attractions than the locals. Also we have to pay about 70% more for train fares. There are ways of getting around this which I am investigating at the moment. But sometimes it will be a lot easier to buy at the correct price as foreigners have more of an orderly queue at their window!
I haven't yet worked out my precise route though I will probably go down to Xian on Monday (1165 km southwest of Beijing). I won't visit Shanghai but further west of there is a place called Wuhan where I want to go on the Yangste River. But I may possibly join the boat further up river. Further south is a place called Guilin which has been recommended by many people I have spoken to. I will then head to Urumqi in north-west China and then go south to Pakistan. It is looking like I will stay in China about a month and a half. But it depends on how much I can stand all the hassles. Although it has been hard in Beijing it is probably the best place to get to grips with the country. The next month will certainly be a challenge and I will be stretched to the limit with my meager Chinese.
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