To Beijing in the East

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  Beijing, China
Wednesday, August 17, 2005

The city of Hohot, despite its rather drab appearance, vindicates itself by providing some culinary delights. At hot pot restaurants each table has a big steaming bowl of spiced broth into which we can toss the microscopically thin slithers of the local lamb and other meat and vegetables. We also find another restaurant where we have a lunch of pancakes wrapped up with hoi sin sauce, sliced scallions, vegetables, and spicy beef, all for Y17 or GBP 1.30 for us both.

Hohot also delights us with its Inner Mongolia Museam where theres a facinating double-act of natural history and communist propaganda. I'm not sure whether I prefer the 4.7m tall woolly mammoth skeleton or the slogans about how inner mongolia is eternal grateful to the motherland for its liberation and glorious economic success.

Our communist era hotel in Hohot also surprises us with some of the worst service we've seen

A look at the Great Wall

. Our laundry, which we have to pay for in advance, comes back wet, dirty, and one of my only decent T-shirts is missing. We also get 4 extra pairs of ladies G-strings that are not Rachel's. A day later I get a rash because they havent rinsed the washing powder out of my T-shirts either.

We head out of Hohot and follow the line of the great wall. We camp in some fields by a crumbling watchtower on the wall, next to a Chinese graveyard. I think its a fine spot with views out to other watchtowers and rolling countryside around. The Chinese guides are nervous as the wind whispers through the trees and the sky darkens.

Next day we go to another complex of Buddhist caves at Datong. Since Rachel was too ill to see much at Dunhuang, she really enjoys the huge sculptures and 1400 year old cave architecture here. Inside one cave is a huge unfinished Buddha that we walk around in the partial dark.

For Lunch in Datong we sample Beijing duck, a specially prepared roasted duck served with wafer thin pancakes. Very delicious - a whole duck costs Y52 (about GBP 4.00) and is more than enough for 4 people.

Getting Directions

Beyond Datong we find another camping spot amongst the terraced fields where the farmers are growing melons. We have very few visitors that night, just the local farmer who drops off three freshly picked melons for us.

We drive towards Beijing and come to the hanging monastery, which is perched 100ft above the riverbed on a sheer cliff wall. Ignoring as best we can the coachloads of tourists and deal-hungry touts, we climb up the ladders and stone carved steps to access its brightly painted rooms. Inside we see evocative painted wooden panels with images of dragons, tigers, birds and trees. It is amazing that the structure, suspended on skinny poles of diameter 4inches, has survived the earthquakes and floods in a river valley location. Despite the masses, this monastery is one of the most impressive and photogenic we've seen, although its a shame that it seems not to be in use.

Behind the monastery is an enormous river dam completed in 1937. We ascend the concrete steps, complete with red communist stars on the blue steel bannister to reach another viewpoint where we can see the hanging monastery below. The monastery's slender dimensions contrast starkly with the chunky proportions of the reinforced concrete structure of the dam

great wall

.

We drive to a dirty little Chinese town in the middle of nowhere in time for lunch. a few of the group find the cleanest looking restaurant and order several dishes. Next minute we have a local press photographer taking shots and the owner toasting us because we are his first ever western clients. The meal is OK but strangely for China they seem to have run out of rice. The toilets are some of the most disgusting Ive seen in a restaurant, especially the state of the unexpected bath in the corner.

Climbing back into the truck after lunch I notice that the local pharmacy are using an image of John Major on their shop sign - his big round glasses obviously made him fit in well with the local fashions, but they have added a triangular chinese goatee beard just to be sure he's a perfect fit.

As with most stops in the middle of Chinese Towns we have a big crowd gathered around the truck to ogle at the westerners and work out why we're there. I think that this is the closest taste I'll have to fame in the western world, as we wave to the locals and sign autographs.

We are heading towards the great wall to the North of Beijing, but we have to stop for camping en-route in a fairly industrial area

great wall 3

. We find a little road through some corn fields to stop where there's some grassy spots to pitch the tent. It turns out to be the worst camping spot imaginable as we are innundated by mosquitos from the corn plants, we have a railroad running about 100m away (and a coal train with 150 wagons makes a lot of noise), theres a coalyard where they are loading lorries just across the railroad, and the temperatures and humidity have soared as we get near Beijing. Never mind, I think to myself, this was the only less-than-acceptable camp site on the whole trip so far.

We cross the railroad track and wander through a little village to try to find a shop. We buy some ice chilled beer and water from a local family, who are sweatily eating dumplings in a cramped room. They offer to serve us dinner but we decline as they look so poor. The 14 year old daughter can speak a little English, which seems to be typical for youngsters in China. She declines to visit our campsite because she's scared of the mosquitos, but kindly escorts us back to the railroad crossing whilst we hold a stilted conversation with her.

Next day, heading to the great wall we pass through some industrial areas where giant factories pump out smoke into a pale white sky and the sun is hidden behind a veil of dust. It feels hot, humid, and polluted as we approach Beijing. Then we divert into some hills to the North of the city and the temperature drops a bit. Soon the sky darkens omminously and we enter a furious electrical storm. The rain sloshes down so hard we have to roll down the tarpaulins on the side of the truck. The road we want to take is washed away and we take an alternate route through the hills passing spectacular pinnacles, green waterfalls, and fishponds

Hanging Monastery

.

We arrive at Jinshan, where we are supposed to camp, but its raining so heavily that we all opt to stay in a hotel instead. We leave at 6.30am the next morning and climb up on to the the wall and head East towards Simitai, our destination. Its still raining on and off, but once on the wall we are greeted by a truly spectacular site as the wall wends up and down the steepest of green ridges as far as the eye can see. All around are hills covered in thick vegetation, merging in ever diminishing shades of green into the grey sky. Clouds and mist intermittently obscure the towers on the high points on each ridge. We will pass 32 towers to reach our destination. After having seen lots of sections of the great wall, from its origin in the west, we are trully startled by its beauty in this area north of Beijing. The wall is partially restored here but looks authentic with trees growing out of the bricks, many broken down parts, and little evidence of tourists (eg no litter).

We take our time wandering along the wall, and we are surprised that there seems to be no-one around at all. We meet one hawker who tries to tag along with us and sell us T-shirts and books, but as the walk progresses and the rain continues to dribble down she eventually gives up and heads back

John Major

.

We reach Simitai after 4 hours and see throngs of tourists on a small section of the wall between two towers. It seems a rather sad that most people just walk about 100 yards. To truly experience a place it seems to me that a walk that tires you out is invariably a guaranteed fix.

In the car park at Simitai we rejoin the truck and learn that yesterday a woman got killed by lightening whilst walking on the wall in a thunderstorm.

We drive into Beijing for what will be our last night together with the group. We feel both happy and sad that the 6 week Exodus tour which has taken us from Kathmandu to Beijing is now ending.

We go out to an expensive restaurant for Beijing duck - its very nice but about 4 times more expensive than we paid last time. Then we head on into town to a bar with live music. We all have a great time singing along to a Philipino band who blast out numbers from the 80's and 90's. We finish at 2am as the band plays 'The Final Countdown' by Europe. Leaving in a taxi, we are surrounded by children begging, offers of ladies for the night, and hawkers of all kinds of trash. The taxi cruises through the wide clean avenues of Beijing towards our hotel and we agree that its been a great trip through China. But Beijing is completely different to any of the Northern cities in China we've passed through. From this point onwards, we will travel alone and we wonder what else China holds in store as we plan to move further south.

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