Impressions of Beijing
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2004
1
85
157
Trip End
Jul 20, 2012
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Beijing - my host Yao and his wife
. It was perfect for Yao and his wife; their daughter lived with Yao's parents and went to school outside of Beijing. He explained that school is very expensive in Beijing and for that reason many parents leave their children with grandparents outside of Beijing. Grandparents play an integral part in Chinese society as they are the ones who take care of the kids when parents working or travelling. Yao is an English teacher at a college in Beijing. I forgot what his wife is doing. The next day I went to the center to take care of my Mongolian visa and find out which bus I have to leave from to go to Inner Mongolia. I did lots of walking around and taking the metro. I had no time for sightseeing except venturing into the many Hutongs that lace Beijing.The center of Beijing is criss-crossed with a grid of many hundreds of small lanes and alleyways. These are called hutongs and their layout dates originally from the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century. The number of hutongs in the city peaked in the 1950s at around 6000. Today, however, there are considerably less and more are disappearing each day because of the high premium on land and the rapid redevelopment of the city as it reinvents itself in time for the 2008 Olympics. However, it is still possible to find and explore many fine hutongs. Several areas of the city that contain historic siheyuan - courtyard house - have also been deemed cultural treasures and hopefully will be preserved. In Beijing, the hutong in the vicinity of the Bell tower and Shishahai Lake is well preserved, several hundred years old, and attracts tourists who can tour the quarter in pedicabs.
The following extract from the book "Behind the Wall" by Colin Thubron provides a wonderful and entirely accurate description of the hutongs.
"I abandoned the avenues and slipped down side-streets into a maze-world of alleys and courtyards. These hutongs are still the living flesh of Beijing, and once you are inside them it shrinks to a sprawling hamlet. The lanes are a motley of blank walls and doorways, interspersed by miniature factories and restaurants. Each street is a decrepit improvisation on the last. Tiled roofs curve under rotting eaves. The centuries shore each other up. Modern brick walls, already crumbling, enclose ancient porches whose doors of beaten tin or lacerated pinewood swing in carved stone frames. Underfoot the tarmac peals away from the huge, worn paving-slabs of another age, and the traffic thins to a tinkling slipstream of pedicabs and bicycles".
I stayed 2 days with Yao and then headed for the Leo Hostel where I stayed one night simply for the purpose of leaving part of my luggage which I didn't need in Mongolia (Yao and his wife were planning to visit their daughter in July, so I could not leave my stuff with them). I also got sick again, the third time in China and, therefore, could not go out to dinner with Yao. I also met with a Li Ming, a servas member from Beijing. We didn't have much time to hang out but I did get to drive his car in Beijing which was fun. Also there is lots of honking going on, there is a certain order to the chaos. So, three days in Beijing and I have neither seen the Great Wall, nor Chinese acrobats, nor the Forbidden City. Once I return from Mongolia, I will spend a few days exploring some of the tourist places before attempting to get a ticket on the new train to Lhasa.
I left part of my luggage at the hostel and went to the bus station to take a bus to Hohot, Inner Mongolia. My plan was to take a direct bus to Erenhot, on the border to Mongolia but that day, there was no bus to Erenhot. I arrived in Hohot at 4 in the morning scratching my head and thinking of ways how to kill time until the bus depot opens and I can get a ticket to Erenhot. Across the bus station was a store that had a television showing a world cup game. My nose pressed on the window, I stood outside the store and watched the first half of a game (can't remember who played). Then, the store keeper came and turned off the TV and left me standing there bored to death. I decided to head to the train station, which is conveniently located next to the bus station, and see if I can get a train ticket to Erenhot. I could, but not until 8am and then only hard seat; I preferred the bus. After the ticket counter opened, I got a bus ticket for the first bus and then had about 1.5 hours to kill. So, I left my luggage and wandered around town. I like exploring towns early in the morning when half of the city is still asleep. I watched people taking Tai Chi or rollerblading in the park, jogging or just taking an easy morning stroll. Most of the restaurants were not open for breakfast yet, so I got some boiled eggs, bananas and bread from some of the street stalls. At 8am, we left for Erenhot, a long journey north through endless grasslands. We got to Erenhot at around 5Pm which meant there would not be any ongoing transport to Mongolia. On the bus, I met an Israeli traveller on his way to Mongolia and we decided to hang out together. There was no bus or train to the border, so we stayed at a small hotel sharing a 2 bed room for 15 yuan. Israelis sure how to negotiate prices; a trait he had to use again the next day when we had to find a minibus going to the border. It was mayhem; the bus cramped with luggage and people for the 7 km ride to the border. On the bus, we met a Mongolian father and daughter team and we stocked with them all the way to UB. The Border formalities were pretty straight forward although there were long lines of Mongolians returning from extended shopping trips in China. For tourists the crossing is pretty much a formality, but local traders are searched as smuggling is common. Around 3Pm, we arrived at the train station of the Mongolian border town Zamun Ude. We went straight to the ticket office queuing to get a ticket for the 5PM train to UB. There are thousands of people with tons of luggage and only one train a day to UB. There are no buses going to UB. Welcome to Mongolia! When it was our turn to purchase the tickets, cost 4800 tugrugs, the lady informed us that there are no more tickets for the day. This was bad news as we did not intend on spending the night in this godforsaken town. Luckily, the father and daughter team managed to get tickets for the 4 of us for double the price. The train was cramped to the fullest and it was a long and dusty ride to UB. We finally got to UB at around 9am the next day. The entire border crossing process took about 2 days and it certainly increased my tolerance and patience level.
