Beijing and Around

Hello there,

I apologize for the long email gap. If you can believe it, Beijing actually has an big internet cafe shortage and we ended up staying at a hotel for Chinese tourists with no internet (but big rooms w/ a TV and bathroom for the same price as 2 dorm beds). I've also had much less time than I intended b/c we have spent far too much time with traveling chores. We've experienced daily headaches because everything in the city is either closed, knocked down, or moved in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. The entire city is a construction site and being created before our eyes. For us, it has meant finding the new locations of bus stations, tourist sites, restaurants, etc. Probably shouldn't have been as big of a deal, but, since we give everything a shot on our own (ie- try not to book tickets/tours thru hotels, it has meant A LOT of walking. That said, the biggest headache of our travels so far has been extending our visa for another 30 days. Long story short, it ended up taking 7 working days (10 days total); we were planning on only 5 days in Beijing...not 12!!! Needless to say we have had to juggle our schedule a bit.

All things considered, Beijing hasn't been a bad place to spend some unplanned days; there definitely is not a lack of things to see. The city itself has been hard for me to love b/c the majority of it looks brand new. The number of construction cranes is absolutely incredible; the city is literally being built before our eyes. The down side is that the old buildings are being knocked down. The famous hutongs (old, small houses lining old, small alleys) are being destroyed for large, generic high rises or at least getting a fresh coat of paint on the outside (but only the outside) to hide them from view. I'll be really interested to see what this place looks like in 2008!!!

Apart from scratching our heads looking at the intentional, rapid, and forced modernization of the city, we have enjoyed visiting some pretty incredible sights. The top on my list is definitely the Great Wall. I've been lucky enough to visit it twice now (Mutianyu and Simatai) in the last week and it didn't disappoint. Once I got over the cable cars and alpine slides blocking my first view (sad but true) and actually got to walk on the wall, I began to understand why it is justifiably one of the wonders of the world. The scale is just incredible and we got to see the popular view of it snaking off into the distance; I can't imagine the manpower it must have taken when it was first built. I took Dad's advice and wandered past the "no tourists" sign for some time on an unrestored section and it really is more impressive with signs of age and decay.

We still have to go on strike and not buy anything our first 3 days in a new country because they can sense when you are new blood and once they are on to you they never fail to rip you off. We have also given up on private transport (namely tuk tuks and taxis') and take public transport solely because they win every time.No matter what country we are in the drivers of the three wheeled mini taxis (tuk tuks, rickshaws, etc) cheat us one way or another every time we step into their vehicle. You would think after 9 months of traveling we would have caught on to their tricks. Of course they always come up with new ones and so many accumulate that it is hard to keep track of them all. Then there are countries like Laos that lull us into a peaceful stupor where we truly believe that not a sole in the world would ever lie to us... truly throwing us off our game. So we walk everywhere. We prefer the humiliation of carting our bags, sweating through the center of town (or with our toes frozen here in China) than to step into another tuk tuk.

The other day we had to take a taxi from the train station to the bus station (about a mile) because there was no direct transport and we only had a half hour to get there, so we were cutting it pretty tight (the Great Wall keep us longer than anticipated!). Our only option was a taxi, but we knew where we were going and the route was straight there, plus the use of taxi meters is widespread in Beijing so we figured it would be okay. Turns out the man zig-zaged the whole way there doubling our fare (there was a language barrier) but the worst part was that he dropped us off only 6 minutes before our bus was scheduled to leave. We had to run through the station and jump on the bus as it was about ready to pull away and plead with the driver to let us use the bathrooms one last time before our 7 hr overnight bus. Dam taxis'.

The only other adventure to report on is that the other day we wanted to go from Xi'an to Pingyao by train but because they were all full I got the great idea to go by bus instead. It was a little more expensive but only took 8 hours instead of 12 and we could stick to our schedule so we set off. At 5:00 in the morning we were dropped off on the side of a highway at the exit ramp for Pingyao... it doesn't get light here until 7:30 or so and no one spoke any English. When I asked them how far the walk was he turned into the bus and asked if anyone spoke English and when no one replied took off without looking back ;). So we started walking towards the city... luckily we had a flashlight (it was so dark we couldn't read signs without it!) to read the signs that were translated in English (also extremely lucky). Anyways after a hour and half of a cold walk we arrived into Pingyao unscathed... a bit scary though. Just that day we were talking about how our travels had gone so smoothly and that we really didn't have any good ''adventure"'stories... so that is the best I got ;).

Another recent highlight was a sidetrip we took to climb the holiest mountain in China and most climbed mountain in the world, Tai Shan. It's only about a 4 hour climb (but on 6,000 plus steps), but is flanked by ancient temples, caligraphy in the rocks, and three gates to heaven. As an indication of its age, there's a marker where Confucius began his climb back around 500bce. I had some gripes with the chair lifts and hotels on the mountain, but it did keep some of it's holy feel once you got to the top. The top is filled with Taoist temples (the yin-yang signs); it must have been incredible back in its prime when Emperor's climbed it to make sacrifices to the Gods. It's still impressive today, but I think it's suffered like all other religions places in China; most are primarily shells of former sacred sights kept alive just enough to attract the tourist. That said, some people were climbing it for more than the great views; I, however, was one of the people climbing it for the views and wasn't disappointed. The best part was the sunrise view. The mountain is perched in the middle of nowhere, so it was really impressive. I also lucked out b/c the relentless wind drove everyone off the viewpoint within 10 minutes of the sunrise, so I enjoyed a bit of solitute on the crowded summit. Definitely one of the highlights of China for me so far, but I am a bit partial to mountains.

Now we are off to Tibet (FINALLY!)!

Beijing:





Great Wall:





Tai'an: