Once in Beijing we walked a short distance from the train station to the Youth Hostel and checked in for 4 nights. After the compulsory shower we stalked out the local area and realised we were not much more than a mile from Tiananmen Square. We saw close to a million bicycles en route and possibly one or two of them obeyed the correct traffic laws. Because of an arson attack a few weeks earlier all of the Internet Cafe's in Beijing were closed until further notice - hence no messages from China until now.
The following day was drizzling so we only ventured out to the Wangfujing shopping district and around to the Workers Stadium in the east for a late lunch. By late afternoon we caught the metro to Tiananmen Square and were amazed by the size of it. We didn't do much in the way of sightseeing but we needed to plan the best way to spend the remaining three days.
Next morning we went straight to see Mao Zedong in his mausoleum - it's much bigger than Lenin's in Moscow but you can only see him from the neck up - he didn't look nearly as good as Lenin but then again he lived about 20 years longer than his little Russian comrade. The mausoleum is right in the middle of Tiananmen Sq and after wandering around for a little while we entered the Forbidden City just to the north. The Forbidden City has a fantastic display of ancient buildings and the audio tour is narrated by former 007, Roger Moore.
The compulsory Mao photo at the entrance to the Forbidden City
After 3 or so hours inside the ancient walls we headed further north to Jingshan Park and climbed to the top for the best view of the city. As good as the vantage point was, we were now at least 2km from the nearest metro station so we chose to continue heading north until we found one, but not after checking out some of the hutongs (alleys) along the way. For dinner, Sara had chicken and I had the scorpion - deep fried.
Jingshan Park
Thursday we were up super early to catch the 3 hour bus to Jinsangling about 100km north east of Beijing near the Hebei province. Once there we hiked a little way uphill until we found the Great Wall (it wasn't hard to miss, after all you can see it from space), from there we headed east towards Simatai Village about 9km away. This section is known as the wild wall because of the slopes (70 degrees in places) and the cliffs. The walk took us just over 3 hours past about 30 towers some of which looked brand new and others that were spectacular in their disrepair. After the hard work we looked back at what we had just walked over and both agreed that we had accomplished something very special. I would certainly do it again.
The Great Wall of China - wild wall
On our last day in Beijing we had a few hours to kill before catching the train. We walked down to a market area nearby and Sara got a Louis Vuitton handbag, I got some North Face gear and we both got some new clothes. By 6pm that night we were on the train to Xi'an with, what seemed like, half of the population of Beijing. There were no fewer than 66 people on our carriage - compared with 9 on the 3 day journey from Moscow to Irkutsk.
We were greeted off the train at 7am the next morning by the friendly youth hostel staff who helped me book our out-bound train to Chongqing for Monday afternoon on a soft sleeper (only 4 people per compartment with a door) then we quickly checked into our room before being whisked out the door on a full day tour. With little sleep and next to no food we visited the nearby Terracotta Warriors, Black Horse Mountain, Qin Shihuang Ling's Tomb (he's the guy who demanded the warriors be placed in his tomb), and a couple of Goose Pagoda's.
The walk up to Shihuang Ling's Tomb
Tomorrow we are going to hire bikes and cycle around the old city walls and then visit the local zoo to see the Panda's. We also have to spend some time doing some washing. That's all for this edition.
The army of the Terracotta Warriors
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