Tiananmen Square and the Fobidden City
Despite the best efforts of the mattress I had a good nights sleep. In the morning I spent a couple of hours catching up on bank and credit card statements (tricky checking stuff off when you just have a phone and no hard copy) and then set off to walk through Tiananmen Square to the Forbidden City. It seemed like a good plan at the time.
I joined a queue for security checks to get into the square. Had I known that I would be in the queue for two hours I would definitely have done something different. It wasn’t too bad until the 7 queue lines went down to 2; that was when the pushing and squashing up started. Still, at least I had the press of the crowd to keep me warm; standing around like that in the sun and 90 C I could easily have got exposure.
I don’t know if it is always like that or whether there were more people or more security checks that day; it just happened to be the 30th anniversary of the violent crushing of the democracy movement. A couple of days later, on the Great Wall, I met a guy who has lived in the USA for 24 years but was a student in Beijing at the time. He had friends injured and killed; they could not believe what was happening, it was totally unexpected. He added that the country had changed dramatically since then and that maybe China does not need democracy; it seems to do better without it.
Finally getting into the square the first thing that strikes you is its size: it is said to be the biggest public square in the world and I can well believe it. I took 20 minutes to wander from one end to the other taking photos of the rather grand buildings alongside. It is also, like all the streets I have seen in Beijing, very clean. In summary, impressively big, but not worth 2 hours queuing.
Fortunately getting into the Forbidden City was not a problem. You have to present your passport to enter most places, and in this case it even became my ticket. It was scanned at the ticket office and then checked at the entrance.
If Tiananmen Square was big and empty, the Forbidden City (also known as the Palace Museum) was even bigger and packed with halls and palaces. Surrounded by a wide moat and a high wall, it was entered through a series of arched tunnels and courtyards. Its 8700 rooms were divided between areas where the Emperor held court and received visitors, and the inner sanctums reserved for the imperial family – and the concubines, of course (it must have been their day off because I didn’t see any). You could spend all day there and not see everything, but a couple of hours or so gives a good flavour of the extreme opulence once enjoyed by the favoured few.
I was still tired after my train journeys and Mongolia tour, not to mention the queuing. I had an early night and slept 11 hours.
The Summer Palace
I will be travelling by train from Beijing to Tai’an and later from Yangshuo to Hong Kong via Ghuangzhou. I bought tickets through an agency (China DIY, who have been very helpful), but needed to pick up the paper tickets at a station. To be on the safe side, I decided to do this a couple of days ahead of time and headed on the easy to navigate subway to Beijing South station, from where my first train departs. Wow! The station is just enormous. Imagine several London station concourses linked together in a series of vast interlinking corridors and you get some idea. It is also very confusing; signs and security check ins all over the place, with no clear indication (to my uninitiated eyes anyway) of where the platforms actually are. When I finally found the ticket office it was straightforward thanks to the message in Chinese on my phone that China DIY had provided. So I have my tickets; the next challenge will be actually finding the train. I am going to give myself plenty of time.
Encouraged by my success I re-entered the subway for the 40 minute journey to the Summer Palace. Not so much a palace, more a huge garden dotted with beautiful halls and pavilions, it was, if anything, even more impressive than the Forbidden City. It would certainly take the whole day to walk all around it, but much of the main northern area can be covered in an afternoon. Those emperors certainly had it good.
Most of the buildings had signs in front explaining their history. Sadly, many had been burnt down in 1860 by an invading army, but had happily been rebuilt 20 or 30 years later. The reason for the invasion? The Chinese wished to stop the opium trade, which was causing great social problems; the invaders wanted to maintain the trade because it was so lucrative. The invaders? A combined British and French force, who as well as burning down most of the exquisite buildings also looted countless priceless objects. Hardly the British Empire’s finest hour. I have never before felt ashamed of my country, but I did today. Imagine if the Chinese had sailed up the Thames, looting and burning because we did not want their opium! How would we feel about the Chinese? As I read sign after sign with the same simply stated fact I wondered what the Chinese standing next to me thought about the westerner amongst them. There was, in fact, not the slightest hint of animosity, but I would not have blamed them if there had been.
Embarrassing history aside, I very much enjoyed exploring the emperors’ garden. They even had a mock shopping street built around water in southern Chinese style so they could pretend to be ordinary people for a while.
There was so much to see: artificial rock outcrops, enormous lakes, pavilions and painted passages. My favourite area was a tranquil water garden away from the crowded main lake front.
The Great Wall
My trip to Beijing would not be complete without a visit to the Great Wall. On day 3 I took the subway a few stops to get the direct bus to the wall. On the internet it had said I needed to buy a ticket for the wall online, but the English language site was not ready. I enquired at the hotel and was told I could buy a ticket at the wall. Getting off the bus, it was not at all clear where to get the ticket. A very kind Chinese lady who had sat beside me on the bus helped me find the ticket office, but I could not buy a ticket directly. After much discussion with the ticket lady, my friend was able to buy the ticket on line for me, whereupon a paper ticket was issued and I paid my friend. What a palaver; without her help I have no idea how I could have bought a ticket. She also helped a young Chinese speaking woman from Singapore who was similarly stuck.
Equipped at last with my ticket I gained entry to the northern stretch of the wall. I had seen lots of pictures, but they hardly do it justice; it is certainly not called ‘Great’ for nothing. A mind boggling feat of construction, it twists and turns, doubling back on itself as it climbs oh so steeply up and down the highest line of the precipitous hills.
It is possible to take a gondola or a ‘pulley’ (a kind of individual little car on a track) up to one of the higher points, but I wanted the full wall experience, so walked the whole way, right to the 12th northern tower where few of the tens of thousands of daily visitors come. All the way I was going up and down, sometimes on steep slopes, sometimes on steps much higher than they were wide. I am a confident walker, but there were plenty of times when I was glad to use the handrails, especially when the rain came in and the stones were wet.
Just building a mile a two of this massive wall would have been an extraordinary feat, but there were literally thousands of miles of it. Truly the Chinese have had an amazing civilisation.
Hutongs
Much of Beijing is huge blocks of flats and soaring modern office blocks, but in between there are still traditional areas of high density low rise housing – the Hutongs. I explored one on my last day, wandering the narrow streets and even narrower alleyways beneath a profusion of tangled wires.
I was impressed with the number of public toilets until I realised that most of the houses probably don’t have facilities of their own. The communal ones were a little basic!
I chatted to a resident, a student who was fetched by her mother. The houses are around 100 years old and she is very happy there. It seems a very friendly and neighbourly area, very quiet compared to the major roads nearby. An old man over the alley got down his bird cages; I felt sorry for the birds in the tiny cages, but that is how things are here.
Impressions of China – first few days
I could sum up my impressions by saying China is big, busy and bloody confusing.
Obviously China covers a large geographical area, but everything in it seems to be on a huge scale as well: the palaces and public places, the 12 lane roads, the great Wall. There are people everywhere – 1.4 billion in fact. And to a first time English visitor this is, with some exceptions such as the clearly indicated subway, not an easy place to get to grips with.
Things that are relatively simple in Europe – getting cash from an ATM, entering a public square, getting a ticket, navigating a station, choosing food – are complicated here.
The Chinese are way ahead of us when it comes to electronic payments; credit cards are not widely accepted but phone payment systems are accepted everywhere – if you have a Chinese bank account. If not, well, you might need to phone a friend. If you have one here.
Keen foodies with a strong stomach will love China. I am a little cautious about new foods and they do not always agree with my digestive system. I look at food on display, or pictures in menus and think ‘What the hell is that?’ An English translation does not always help much either; I had no idea what ‘Fried Enema in Longfu Temple’ was, but I was pretty sure I didn’t like the sound of it. Nor did ‘Donkey Flesh’ or ‘Spicy Frog’ really float my boat. I have eaten some good food here, but only after looking at several restaurants and countless menu items to find something that sounded palatable. On the one occasion I took a chance and chose something from a picture that the waiter told me was chicken, I wished I hadn’t. Imagine you have eaten a chicken and thrown away all the scraps of skin, bones and claws, maybe with a few shreds of meat hanging on; the Chinese make a dish out of that and mix it with red hot chili peppers. I just don’t understand how they can eat it; I certainly couldn’t.
Even going to the supermarket is a challenge. I found a Walmart because I wanted to buy chocolate, biscuits, nuts and tea bags. I thought it would be straightforward but, alas, I was wrong again. I did manage to find peanuts on my own, and even managed, with a little help, to navigate the self labelling weighing machine menus. For everything else I needed help. I had thought the Chinese were big on tea, but it seems not, at least in the supermarket; there was a little tea, but no tea bags. Chocolate and biscuits were hidden away downstairs, and were expensive.
Looking for a comfortable place to get a coffee and spend a couple of hours writing this before I caught my train, I entered a Starbucks. Coffee was £4 and not a comfortable chair in sight, so I moved on.
At the station to get my tickets I had bought what I thought would be a safe meal at KFC. The pieces of fried chicken were OK-ish, but the chicken breast in a bun was only half cooked and I didn’t eat it.
In short, there is much to admire here and wonderful sights to see, but it is not an easy experience for an Englishman on his own without a guide.
Tai’an
(Not really Beijing, actually 200 miles south, but still in the north of China)
After some confusion about which security check to use at Beijing South railway station, I was able to board my high speed train, and very impressive it was too: sixteen sleek coaches travelling smoothly and comfortably at up to 190 mph. I sat next to a Chinese student who was returning home after completing his first year at Manchester university. He’ll have to wait awhile before he travels this fast on Manchester trains.
At Tai’an we queued for taxis for 20 minutes but the 20 minute journey to my hotel cost less than £2.50 (the student’s father ensured the driver had the meter on before I set off).
The next morning I set out to climb the sacred mountain, Taishan, walking 30 minutes from my hotel to the entrance. I had intended to walk all the way, but ended up at a bus station where there was a sign saying that hikers should use another entrance a couple of miles away. At that stage I decided to use the bus. Needless to say I had to queue, first for the ticket and then for the bus itself, but the hour it took was alleviated by the happy shouting of hundreds of Chinese voices. Very relaxing.
The bus climbed steeply for 20 minutes and a few hundred metres up the mountain through hairpin bends, leaving only another 730m climb to the Heavenly Gate and a further 60m to the summit. Ordinarily not a major challenge, but when the path is almost all steep steps it takes it out of you. By the time I got to the top 1 hour and 40 minutes later my legs were glad they had not walked all the way from the town, but they were still able to carry me for another hour and a half as I strolled around the extensive summit area.
Don’t imagine this was a quiet, peaceful walk in the hills; it was packed with people going up and down; you had to be very careful not to trip and fall on the precipitous steps and also not to bump into anyone. For those familiar with Austria, think the Krimml Falls to get an idea of the crowds and commercialisation. From bottom to top there are 7000 steps; imagine Ben Nevis with wide stone steps all the way up to a series of temples.
Despite those shrines it did not feel very holy or spiritual and I saw no one who appeared to be making a pilgrimage. There was also an almost complete absence of westerners; I met one group of four Americans in a restaurant at the top and that was it. It was the same on the Great Wall; I saw one western couple there. Where are the other foreign visitors?
I had the option of a gondola ride down to the bus station, but decided to test my knees by walking down (very carefully, I might add). I was pleased and relieved to get down without any problems, caught the bus to the bottom and walked slowly back to my hotel, where I was glad to stretch my legs out on the bed.
Rob's Roads 