China (Beijing)
Sunday 7th of August 2005
Place: Beijing, China
Climate: Heavy hot air, cloudy about 28 0C
Health: Both Anit and Henk in good condition.
Thought of the day: Jesus! All in Chinese language!!! (Anita); Finally in
Beijing, hope we have a nice hotel (Henk)
At 3pm we arrived in Beijing. We said
good-by to our train neighbors and went to catch a taxi. When leaving the train
station we were ‘attacked’ by several Chinese men who offered us a taxi. Since
we were warned by Migaa that the prices for tourists are very high and must
always be negotiated, we kept saying: “too expensive”. Finally one of the guys
took us to the hotel, but on the way tried to increase the earlier agreed price of 70Y (7
Euro). We said: 70Y or stop now – we get out. And it worked! We paid
the agreed sum of money.
We stayed in Holiday Inn Downtown
Beijing. At first we received some strange looks from the staff, when entering
with our backpacks (like this time in Scotland when we asked the reception where
we could put our bicycles). It was a very nice hotel, with a swimming pool, that
we tried out immediately after check-in. The room was also great, specious with
separate living and bed room (we received a free upgrade to junior suite). Not
so bad for 54 Euro per night.
This evening we went out to try out some Chinese food and we ended up in the
“Dumplings King” (Krol Pierogow in Polish). In a broken English the staff
offered us some dumplings. Anita chose a non-meat version and Henk had a
chicken. First experience with a Chinese food was a total failure! Anita got
meat dumplings and Henk got a cold chicken. Right, let’s go to another
restaurant to have something to eat. No, that’s fine, we want to lose weight
anyway! When we came back to our hotel we had to do the washing. As the real
poor backpackers we washed our clothes in the soap! Henk made line in the
bathroom where we hang the laundry. The hotel staff must have been surprised
when they saw the lines in the bathroom of this junior suite!
Monday 8th of August 2005
Place: Beijing, China
Climate: Heavy hot air, cloudy about 28 0C
Health: Both Anit and Henk in good condition.
Thought of the day: Where is the sun? Is it always so cloudy in this city? Is it
smog that doesn’t allow the sun? (Anita); Ooooops time to work on our web site,
when? (Henk)
So, the first day in Beijing! We go
sightseeing. Well instructed by the Lonely planet we took a subway to get to the
main square of Beijing (also the biggest in the world): the Tiananmen Square.
There we made our way to the Forbidden city, the imperial palace during the Ming
and Qing dynasties. It was however not that impressive as we thought. In fact
most buildings were under reconstruction/renovation. All in preparation for the
2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Because of this, it is better to come and see
Beijing after 2008.You need approximately 3 hours to walk through all the
buildings of the Forbidden City. What is nice, is to take the audio guide spoken
by Roger Moore. He gives detailed insight on most of the places you pass.
During our walk in the Forbidden city we were pleasantly surprised by
a............Tennant 8410. So far away from home and work, but Tennant seems
to be everywhere.
Afterwards we wanted to take a Riksha back to Tiananmen Square but after being
attacked by several drivers offering different prices we decided to (safely, but
hot and crowded) take a bus and postpone a Riksha experience to another day. We
had a lunch in a typical Chinese restaurant (Attempt no 2). This time Anita
ordered asparagus with mushrooms and rice – delicious! Henk had very spicy
chicken with red pepper (warm this time) plus slices of beef cooked with green
pees and sweet onions served on hot stones. Additionally for desert we had
sesame balls. It was tasty but we ordered too much. Anyway, this attempt was
more successful than the Dumplings King!
In the late afternoon we went to the Beijing railway station to buy the train
tickets to Shanghai. It took us a while to find a ticket office with English
speaking person. Finally we decided to order the tickets in our hotel since the
price was only slightly higher and at least we could explain what kind of
compartments we wanted. We have to admit dear Flavia and Kate (our Chinese
friends from Belgium) that your English is perfect in comparison to your peers
in Beijing. We miss you a lot here!!!
The climate here is completely different
than in NL or Poland. It’s heavy making you more tired, there is little wind and
sun. Maybe because of this different climate we fell in deep sleep after we came
back in hotel this evening.
Tuesday 9th of August 2005
Place: Beijing, China
Climate: Rainy and cloudy, fog, 27
0C
Health: Both Anit and Henk in good
condition.
Thought of the day: Strange weather
here, so hot and so foggy (Anita); Rainy day, now we really work on our web-site
(Henk)
We got up early in the morning with full
energy to further discover Beijing. However, due to the heavy rain, we had to
change our plans. We decided to work on our website since especially in
Mongolian countryside there was no possibility to connect to internet or charge
our equipment. Later in the afternoon we went out to visit Beijing in the night.
We went to a Hutong. Hutong is the name of the old Beijing districts where you
can see how the real Chinese people live in their traditional houses. Far from
tourist attractions and the crowded modern city, you face here the old, grey
buildings and people in their daily activities. It seems dirty and a lot of
different smell (many of them not nice). Quite impressive. To make this trip
even more exotic we chose a real local Chinese restaurant to have a dinner. No
English menu, no English speaking staff. Cool! Fortunately, the menu had
pictures so we simply could point with a finger what we wanted. God, they didn’t
even understand COLA / COCA- COLA / COKE !!! Fortunately we had Flavia’s
dictionary (Flavia, you’re our angel!); it helped to explain that Anita doesn’t
eat meat and she got Noodles (spicy like a hell) and Henk got prawns (also
spicy!) Is all Chinese food always so spicy???
Wednesday 10th of August 2005
Place: Beijing, China
Climate: Cloudy, fog 30 0C
Health: Ok, but the Chinese food was
too spicy for our western stomachs, we had some minor digestion problems
Thought of the day: I love markets,
I’ve never bargained so hard in my life! (Anita); Climbing, climbing, climbing; kope, kope, kope!(Henk)
Today we got up at 7 in the morning. We go to see the Great
Wall of China! We chose to go to Samatai – The Great Wall (110km away from
Beijing) where there are not many tourists and the nature is beautiful
(according to Lonely Planet and this is true). We first took a subway (the best
and very cheap means of transportation in Beijing, the ticket costs 3 Yen per
person (one trip) = 0,30 euro).
From there we wanted to take a mini bus as described in the
Lonely Planet, but we were first attacked by a man whose price was sky rocket
high and then in a much friendlier way approached by a Chinese girl who offered
us transportation to the Great Wall at Samatai. She called her friend/husband
and he showed up with another couple, from…..the Netherlands (these guys are
everywhere, Anita). We agreed the price, 40 Euro for all of us 2 way, which
means about 6 hours drive in total. The guy started to drive and he was really
crazy! He drove fast (how fast we cannot tell since his speedometer was broken)
and we all prayed that the rest of the car was in better condition than the
speedometer. He passed cars left and right and if people would not move he would
use his horn that sounded like a police car horn (whioe, whioe, whioe). Also no
respect for bicycles, simply for nothing. One other thing to mention is that
mini buses are not only mini from outside, but also from inside, so no real
sitting comfort. After 3 hours driving we reached at our destination.
The climbing was a great challenge, terrible steep and
double tiring in such weather (hot, foggy and high humidity). We climbed for 2
hours up and down the stairs, and on the way back we took a small train down and
the cable car. A great experience, highly recommended. Also interesting is that
all stairs are different and like we said some are more steep than others,
sometimes there are no stairs and the size of the steps varies.
When we came back to Beijing (this time the women drove and
no more horns or taking over on right side), we took a Riksha. A must in China!
Super nice. By Riksha we went to the Silk Market – a place where you can buy
clothes (Hugo Boss), jewelry (Dior), watches (Rolex, IWC), Backpacks (North
Face), etc. all branded, but fake of good quality.
At this market all the sellers are extremely pushy (Where
are you from, I like you, you are beautiful, looki looki looki and cheap cheap
cheap are some of the sentences they use mostly), they want you to buy of course
and very often when they see a foreigner, they propose a cosmic prices, so watch
out and bargain! We think the best strategy is when they ask hundred to offer 5
and than the game begins. Also don’t be afraid to stick to your price and walk
away. The article you want will probably be also there 5 stands further. One
thing a Chinese trader will not do is selling at loss, so there are limits of
bargaining.
Also here it is possible to have clothes custom made like
suites, silk dresses, cashmere winter coats, etc. We only bought some small
things and decided to wait till Shanghai, where there are similar markets.
Our tip to you is, get your visa for China, find a cheap
flight and go to China with nothing (No suitcase, maybe only a toothbrush and
some extra underwear). Make sure you have some money and come back with all the nice stuff you need
for a bargain. It will give you a nice time and if you buy enough it will for sure pay
back your flight!
On the way back to hotel we made a stop by the American
restaurant Sizzler (no Chinese food today) where we had a nice (western) dinner.
Thursday 11th of August 2005
Place: Beijing, China
Climate: Cloudy, foggy, 33 0C
Health: Ok, we still feel the Chinese
food in our stomachs, especially Henk
Thought of the day: I have never
sweat so much in my life, not even in the hottest sauna! (Anita); With this type
of weather every day, Beijing is not showing me the best (Henk)
Today we got up at 7.30 in the morning.
We ordered one breakfast in the room which in fact was enough for two (we still
felt the Chinese food in our stomachs). Since today we had to check out, we
first packed our goods and left them in the hotel’s locker. We still had one
tourist attraction to see: the Summer Palace, a summer residency of the
emperor. To get there we had to take metro and bus. The Summer Palace is
huge, 290 hectares, of which more than 70% is water. To see all the buildings
you need for sure more than one full day. We had a couple of hours. After a
short walk, we decided to take a pedal boat, since it was so hot and we hoped to
get cooled by the water. This was however not the fact. The water in the lake
was very warm, the air was very humid and we sweated like a hell. Anyway, taking
the boat was actually the better idea, because climbing the stairs and visiting
all the palace buildings was very tiring because of the weather and many Chinese
tourists. The Summer Palace is very beautiful, but as said due to the weather we
could not see the best of it.
After having visited the palace, we had
to rush back to the hotel to pick up our backpacks and we went by Metro to the
train station to take the night train to Shanghai. In the Metro we got a lot of
attention. Probably the Beijing people have not seen so many foreigners with
backpacks in the subway.
Beijing was very crowded and due to the
very foggy and hot weather quite tiring. We saw all the “important sightseeing
spots” with the Great Wall being the most impressive cultural monument. We also
had impression that the whole city prepares itself for the Olympic Games in 2008.
We believe that the city will look like completely different (much nicer) after
this event. Good-by Beijing.