Beijing
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
1
115
130
Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Beijing,
China
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The square is basically just that, albeit the largest public one in the world. At 122 acres it can hold half a million people and there were a fair few thousand in it that day. It is every Chinese persons dream to visit this square but I can't really see the huge attraction apart from Mao's mausoleum, though apparently thousands gather at sunrise (5am) to watch the raising of the Chinese flag each morning. We wandered around for half an hour taking in the vast expanse of open space, but really that was all there was to see, apart from the portrait of Mao over the Gate of Heavenly Peace.
Another interesting thing was seeing where the student had stood in front of the line of tanks that was broadcast live across the world back in 1989 during the pro-democracy rallies. When we asked Frank about the Tiananmen Square massacre, he seemed to think, and said that most people now agreed, that what the government was correct and the killing of students actually kept the country unified.
Soldiers in Tianamen Square
This made our jaws drop a little. He also couldn't tell us how many students were killed and there was no memorial to them. It appeared they had disobeyed warnings to disperse and so at the allotted time they were all shot at by the army. I guess the moral of the story is to obey the regime as they will carry out the threats they make. One other sight in the Square are the numerous guards/soldiers/police patrolling the area some in uniform but also many plain clothed who are apparently on the lookout for people forming groups and showing signs of dissent...Next up was to take a walk around the Forbidden City that sits behind Tiananmen Square and is entered into through the Gate of Heavenly Peace. About 600 years old it is an impressive array of walls, squares and pagoda temples some recently renovated for the Olympic Games. It's one of the most well preserved set of buildings in China, but after a while all the squares and temples seem to be the same, in fact the nicest area was the gardens to the rear where the emperor kept his 2,000 concubines, the conclusion to the visit.
After an afternoon sightseeing it was time to find some dinner, but not before we had a wander around Huahai Lake which was a pleasant area with quite a few bars dotted around it reflecting their neon signs onto the placid waters. Keith made a call to a friend he had in Beijing who said our best bet for dinner was to head to Sanlitun, and she wasn't wrong as we found a great Italian and had our best meal of the trip so far (maybe because it wasn't a set meal, and they had bread).
Tianamen Square
After the meal it was time to call it a night as we had an early start to drive out to the Great Wall the following day.Up early we made the 4 hour drive out to the Simatai area of the Great Wall of China, chosen for it's remote location so their would be less tourists and because it was a more stunning area of the wall. Ruth and Linda didn't come with the group as they were worried about the hiking and so had opted to do a closer but more touristy area of the wall. After getting to Simitai we were glad that the itinerary had suggested we go to this area as it was very quiet and peaceful but with some dramatic scenery, the wall running along the ridge of the mountains.
After a below average lunch and checking into our simple accommodation it was time to tackle the hike up the wall.
To be honest, although the view from our lodge to the wall was beautiful, I also knew that this wasn't going to be an easy hike by the steepness of the mountain. Maud was back in her usual anti-climbing mode and once she spotted the cable car there was no way she was going to climb thousands of steps! She headed off to the ticket booth and we agreed to meet at tower 13 which was as far as we were allowed to on this section.
I headed of with the rest of the group and we started off along the lake to the start of the climb to tower 1. Maud's cable car took her level with tower 4 and from there you could see the path across the hillside where she would join the wall. When we met at tower 13 it appeared that this didn't quite go to plan. As she was pursued by an over-enthusiastic t-shirt selling lady she took the wrong turn and found herself on a very steep climb up to tower 8 so made it up to tower 13 about an hour before us.
The climb for the rest of us was pretty hard going. The climb from tower to tower was like climbing about 10 flights of stairs.
Tianamen Square
We made it to the final tower in about 2 hours. We had some amazing views on the way up and were surprised to see stalls with full-size chest freezers selling ice creams and drinks along the way.The wall was more impressive than we had expected and we were so glad that we had come to China to see it - it had made all the bad food and rat encounters worthwhile and definitely the highlight of this part of the trip. In either direction it ran endlessly on towards the horizon along the mountain ridges. On some sections that hadn't been renovated you could see the stones that had fallen away down the hillsides.
I have no idea how you would walk the section we covered when it was raining or in the winter when it was icy. In parts it was very steep with no steps and difficult to walk up and down. After taking lots of photos from the towers we made our way back down, stopping at the tower 7 drink lady for a few bottles of Tsingtao and sat on the tower roof to take in the views.
Back down at the hotel Maud was pretty glad that she had taken the cable car up as she would have hated the thousands of steps up to the top - 5 towers worth was enough for her!
That evening we ate in a family run restaurant around the corner from our hotel. The food was pretty good and we managed to order way too much but I'm sure they had a feast when we had paid our bill and headed back to the hotel. With nothing else to do (the village was like a ghost town) we settled into Keith's room to watch a DVD on his laptop.
The next morning it was back on the bus to Beijing for another 3 nights there.
Once back in Beijing most of us had decided that it was shopping day and so headed off to the Silk Market armed with cash and with our bargaining heads on. It was pretty hard work to walk around the hundreds of stalls spread over 5 floors as at each one there was at least one woman or man trying to drag you in there to buy something.
Chairman Mao's Mausoleum
At least the various floors were set out in an organized manner with shoes, bags and belts in the basement then a couple of floors of clothing followed by a floor of jewellery, watches and sunglasses, then it was up to house stuff and tailors then a final floor of electronics and golf clubs.We spent the afternoon shopping and then decided we would go and see if the bird's nest stadium and cube were lit up at night. It took about an hour on the metro to get up to the stadiums from central Beijing, just to see that they weren't illuminated at night and were surrounded by wire fencing so you couldn't get up close to them. At least we had seen them in the flesh though, it would have been a shame to come all the way here and not see the Olympic stadiums it was just a bit disappointing that only 2 months after the event they weren't showcasing these impressive structures. After the stadiums we went to find a fish and chip shop in the Hutongs recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was worth the hassle of trying to find the place in the small Hutong back streets though, as they served great English style fish and chips and Maud's first Strongbow since Abu Dhabi 6 weeks ago, there were smiles about a meal at last.
The next day a few of us went to go and visit the Summer Palace, the Emperor's residence during the summer as it was a little cooler up here than at the Forbidden City. It was certainly chilly that day and the fleeces were out in force. We spent about 3 hours looking around the palace and the peaceful lake, taking in some of the temples and Buddhist shrines in the complex.
Monument to the People's Heroes, Tianamen Sqr
Maud had one of the most amusing lunch experiences of the trip. We were sitting in a small waterside café eating our noodles when 2 quite well dressed middle-aged ladies sat next to us. They ordered bowls of noodle soup and before we knew it they were eating away making the loudest slurping noises we'd heard. Now we must point out that one of the worst and unexpected habit the Chinese have is hacking up phlegm and spitting everywhere and anywhere which we found disgusting. After they'd finished the both let out really loud belches and we were struggling not to laugh when Maud said "The only thing she could do which would be worse is fart or spit phlegm in the water next!" and as if on cue she did just that - at which point we just had to laugh it was so bad.
After lunch the afternoon was spent back at Silk Street buying more stuff from the crazy market traders.
That night was the final group meal and we had chosen to go to a famous Peking Duck restaurant, at last Maud was going to get her duck rolls. As with most Chinese experiences so far though, it wasn't quite up to our expectations, as the duck was sliced rather than shredded and the Hoi Sin sauce didn't taste quite right, ah well it was still pretty good, but weird that we preferred a Crispy Duck from the local Chinese back at home rather than the authentic Peking Duck in Beijing. After the meal we headed to Sanlitun again to find a bar, but they were all so overpriced we ended up back in the Italian from 2 nights ago, but still had a good night saying our farewells to the group.
The next day was spent organizing our stuff to move on from China to Japan and of course a last visit to Silk Street for some DVD's and a coat for Helen (it's going to be cold in America).
I think our trip in China has been an interesting experience and we have definitely seen some amazing things, especially the Great Wall which was the highlight of the trip.
Gate of Heavenly Peace Tianamen Square
However, I think we have realized that in comparison the other two Intrepid trips we have done this one was just an average trip rather than fantastic. It is definitely the guide that can make a trip and for this one in China our guide did just what he had to and not much more. Intrepid have a good feedback system so we'll be commenting there. China was in some ways a lot more modern than we had expected for a communist country but in other ways was less so. There aren't 9 million bicycles in Beijing anymore (so they need to re-write that song) - in fact there are very few but there are millions of cars. Thankfully we weren't there in the summer to see the pollution at its worst when spending a day in the city means that you inhale as much carbon monoxide equivalent to smoking 70 cigarettes a day! Coming from a democracy it was difficult to understand the peoples' acceptance of an undemocratic government especially their actions in Tiananmen Square. Frank did point out that until the 60s and 70s many Chinese people didn't know that other races existed and were amazed to see "white people with big noses" as he called us. Many things are still very restricted - such as over 20% of internet sites are blocked as we weren't allowed to access Travelpod there - too much free thinking perhaps?
We were also surprised that for a country that has so many developments especially in technology and industry there is very little style applied especially to residential buildings. There are so many new buildings but they look functional rather than aesthetically pleasing to the eye. This was especially the case in the 3 Gorges where the blocks built to rehouse the displaced people from the gorges were just plain ugly with no consideration for their beautiful green surroundings.
It will be very interesting to go back one day should the government be overthrown and the country becomes a democracy. When we were there TV and news reports were full of articles of people losing their jobs due to the "credit crunch" and with no system of benefit/welfare it will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years....
Comments
Hi guys
Great photos, especially of the wall. Glad to see you are still having fun. How has the level of spitting been in China?
We have ran into the monsoons in vietnam-not impressed. Good pics of Ravi and our tour as well. We can't manage to get photos on here, it seems to take ages. We must be doing something wrong.Keep enjoying. Dave and Suzi
TWO RATTY TREKKERS
China seems to have been a most interesting experience but not one that is worth repeating.
Another collection of excellent photographs.
I was disappointed at your lack of cullinary initiative. You had no need to go hungry on the river trip as you had to hand the ingredients for a delicious RATatouille!!
Better luck in Japan with the Sushi etc.
Ta Ta
Dad.