Chapter 17 - The Rolls of Eternally Forbidden Ramblings
Where we explore Beijing in its finest foggy and dismal weather, careen off the Great Wall and avoid the Steps of Treacherous Falls
Beijing or Bust
On the plane to Beijing, China, Tuesday, 25 July 2006
I am currently seated on a plane winging my way to Beijing, China.
This was not how I pictured arriving in Beijing, but as they say “them’s the breaks”! Mongolian Airlines and the Mongolian airport have been incredibly efficient, clean, new and impressive. The plane is a brand spanking new Boeing 737–800 and the service of the stewardesses smiling and cheerful.
Robin is on the same plane as me and managed to cause quite the ruckus at the gate. He had been unable to find his boarding card or (at one point) his passport much to his, mine and the officials’ horrors. Thankfully, his brains did eventually return to him from wherever it had momentarily fled.
Lori saved my life.
Today was a day of goodbyes and souvenir shopping. After saying our mid-morning farewells to Scott, we went to find cashmere sweaters for two of Lori’s friends. I am sure the sales people thought we were mad as we meticulously pored over some incredibly brightly coloured clothes. After all that, we went for some food.
To understand what happened next, I need to tell you the story of the “Ulaanbaatar underground children.”
During a particularly bad winter a few years ago, some rural families had sent their young children to Ulaanbaatar in order to prevent starvation. These children had taken residence in the underground tunnels containing the heating pipes for the city’s buildings. Since then, they roamed the streets by day and entered their private city through manholes during the night. As such, many manholes are simply left uncovered.
In my most gentlemanly manner, I decided to exit the taxi with my back turned to the pavement. As my foot entered thin air rather than hitting the ground as expected, I heard shrill screams from the taxi. A panicked grab at my arm by Lori pulled me back from near oblivion. I turned to see an open manhole that I had put my foot into.
Had Lori not grabbed me, I would likely have fallen ten feet or more directly on to jagged pipes and banged myself up completely–or much worse. Thank goodness for Lori.
Nevertheless, all is done.
I’m packing directions and itineraries prepared by master guide Robin for our brief stay in Beijing. Sarah needs to apply for and obtain a Chinese visa in Ulaanbaatar, whereupon she will also fly out to Beijing and join us. Scott, of course, has gone on ahead. I’m supposed to meet him at Downtown Backpackers, a hostel that Robin has given directions to. Scott will be staying at the Grand Hyatt (lucky him) from tomorrow onwards. The directions to Downtown Backpackers are a little dodgy, involving telling the taxi to stop at a Kodak sign. Luckily for me, Robin has kindly consented to drop me off at the hostel on his way home in Beijing.
Mind you, it did take us quite a bit of time to taxi to the Ulaanbaatar airport. Robin’s attempts at extending his arms and making airplane noises were so impressive that the taxi driver tried to take us to the train station. Robin finally came up with the good idea of calling a friend and getting him to explain where we wanted to go to the hapless driver.
So finally here I sit at 30,000 ft on my way to Beijing, China. I have a week and a half before finishing this 10,000km journey across Europe, Russia and Central Asia.
Forbidden Ramblings
Beijing, China, Wednesday, 26 July 2006
Beijing is a foggy, misty, polluted, and rambling city that alternates between making me nostalgic for my former home city of Hong Kong and making me crave the simplicity of Gir life in Mongolia. It is modern, chaotic, communist, and distinctly capitalist: Beijing is a surreal anachronism of various economic and social theories. Yet it seems to work.
My first task was to wake up this morning. I failed.
Scott had not made it to my hostel, Downtown Backpackers, as planned. Robin and I took a cab from the airport. When he pointed to his place, I said “so you said the hostel was close to where you live?”, to which he answered yes. We then proceeded to sit in the taxi for another ten minutes. I knew then that there was no way Scott would have found it in the maze. Heck, I would have been screwed had it not been for Robin!
Alighting from the cab we immediately announced our arrival in Beijing by setting off a nearby car alarm. We then rushed into the dimly lit narrow alley of a Hutong. Hutongs are ghettos of alleys and dwellings. Many are being torn down but others, like the one housing the hostel, were being preserved. It was 10pm but the locals were wandering around and even a road crew was still working. I trusted in fate and was rewarded; Downtown Backpackers had one single room available for exactly the time I would be in Beijing. Thanks Robin!
Scott, meanwhile, had given up his quest to find the hostel and instead retired to the Grand Hyatt where he had planned to hole up for most of the trip. We chatted by phone and made plans to meet in the morning to check out Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and do a bike tour of the Hutongs.
Well, like I said, my first failure of the day was not waking up.
My second mistake was trusting a local about distances and travel times.
“How far is Tiananmen Square?” I asked the helpful receptionist who was booking my train tickets to Shanghai.
“Not far, 15 minutes by cab.”
Thirty-five minutes later in the cab, I arrived at Scott’s hotel near Tiananmen Square. No amount of paging could rouse Scott to magically appear at reception. I assumed, considering my delay, he had already left for Tiananmen Square, so off I went.
I had only ever seen the famous square on television and only really during the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre when I was becoming politically active during my childhood in Hong Kong. For that reason alone, I have complicated feelings and emotions about the Square. What I found there was not what I had expected.
The area was teeming with thousands of people, mostly Chinese tourists probably from different parts of China. Under the stern, fatherly stare of Mao Tse Tung at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, vendors hawked their wares, children screamed at mothers, and thousands of photos were being clicked. Along one side of the Square, a solid half-kilometre line of people stood waiting to see the preserved corpse of Mao in his mausoleum.
A short time after arriving, my phone rang: Scott was still at the hotel. This was sheer comedy. We arranged to meet at the Square, and I decided to stand still.
That was my next mistake of this day.
I was immediately accosted by parents, grandparents, children, and more. All wanted to take my photo. Yes, the foreign-looking freak curse had come back to haunt me here in China. I can honestly say that I have had my photo taken at least a dozen times — “strike a pose, nothing to it!”
I was also accosted by “art students” who were supposedly having an art show nearby. It turned out that Scott had also been accosted on his way to the Square, and we both made our way to the art show — more to get away from the constant harping towards us tourists and the dismal weather than anything else.
However, this is China, where it seems everyone wants to sell themselves or something to you. We attracted yet another “art student” who attached himself to us like a leech. He was very persistent in showing us and selling the art. We did end up buying some artwork, but I think we were “had.” Oh well. What follows is a short guide on haggling in China.
“How much is that?” Innocent, wide-eyed tourist.
“500 Yuan each, 2000 Yuan for all four.” Very-well-prepared shopkeep.
“How about 500 for all four?” Not-so-innocent tourist.
“No No! Is too cheap! 1500!” Wheedling shopkeep.
“Never mind then.” Walking-away tourist.
“Okay 900, special price for you!” Running-after shopkeep.
“Never mind!” Slightly-faster-walking tourist.
“Okay okay, 500! All four! Come back!”
Having bought more art than I knew how to carry, we were walking towards the Forbidden City when Scott ran into a couple of Irish girls he had met on the plane from Mongolia. They were dental students from Dublin, Nessa and Jenny. Having decided that there was more safety in numbers, we entered the Forbidden City together.
The Forbidden City was the Imperial residence for over 600 years. It comprises 9,999 rooms and is a half-room smaller than the palace of the Jade Emperor in Heaven. The complex is a rambling affair. Armed with wireless guides which annoyingly hailed us out of the blue with disembodied voices as we came near something, we wandered around in the now dismal rain.
There were gates to “Impressive Prowess”, “Supreme Harmony” and “Medium Harmony”. I didn’t see any directions to “Lesser Harmony”. There were halls to Mental Cultivation and the ever-endearing Palace of Abstinence—a place I avoided at all costs. I suspect that the sewers at the Forbidden City are called the Halls of Eternal Fragrance—at least that might sound better than the Hall of Moving Smells. After a few hours of Impressive, Supreme, and Mental Walking, we were all tired. The four of us convinced rickshaws to take us to Houhai Lake for lunch. I felt extremely sorry for the rickshaw driver who had to bike Scott and me our sorry arses.
We walked around Houhai Lake until starvation forced us to sit in a nameless but serviceable restaurant. We then discovered one of Robin’s bar suggestions: the Drum and Bell Pub. It stands between, and how odd is this, the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower. To buy drinks, however, one needs money.
So began our quest for an ATM.
An ATM is a mysterious beast which truly should not be a rarity in a city of 15 million. However, we might as well have been searching for a four-leafed clover being held by a well-hidden leprechaun. The first bank we found was a joyous sight. The Microsoft Windows error message resulting from Jenny’s attempt to use it and its subsequent blue screen of death hardware failure were a bit discouraging. I used my Mandarin phrase book to ask for a bank, to which an old Chinese guy burst into laughter and pointed at his 3-year-old daughter. I may have accidentally asked the man to buy his daughter.
We persevered and finally escaped a mythical ATM with money. At the pub, we drank and played more drinking games, tasted many drinks, listened to the one CD of Norah Jones skipping around in their CD Player for way too long, and I was hit on by a very effeminate bartender. Finally, we hit a Chinese restaurant for supper.
On the menu were such delicacies as “Roast Lamp” (Nessa — “It may come in different shades!”) and “Duck Paws” (mmm, yummy). Luckily for us, the restaurant seemed to be out of most of what the menu listed, so we were finally given one page to order from. Having stuffed ourselves, I left the others and walked back to the hostel.
So here I sit about to go to bed. I have just run into Yannis from the Irkutsk-Ulaanbaatar train! What a small world hosteling can be. Sarah is supposedly arriving by plane tomorrow, and Scott and I are going to wake up early and be driven to explore a remote section of the Great Wall. As for the Irish girls, we shall hopefully see them on Friday night for some drinks and fun, hopefully along with Robin.
Close your eyes and pray!:
Beijing, China, Thursday, 27 July 2006
Our Great Wall adventure was an experience.
If you like walls, this one is quite amazing; otherwise, it’s a mighty long and probably not-so-interesting fence. I happen to like walls. We had booked a car through Robin’s contacts to take us to a remote part of the Great Wall at Jin Shan Ling. The Wall there isn’t as touristy, it isn’t restored, and it was definitely the crumbly parts which made our adventure more interesting.
I woke up to yet another glorious Beijing day of misty fog and generally dismal weather. When I went to the Hyatt to meet up with Scott, I was greeted by the recently arrived Sarah. We made our driver wait while we partook in a fancy and fairly expensive breakfast while completing our hugs and cheers. This breakfast turned out to be essential for the success of our journey, as we did not eat again for at least twelve hours, not that we knew at the time. Leaving Sarah to enjoy such creature comforts as Starbucks and the Hyatt’s famous pools and saunas, we headed into the wilds beyond Beijing.
For some reason, both Scott and I had assumed that the ride would only be about 2 hours. Three or more hours later, Scott turned to me and said, “I don’t think we’re going in the right direction!”
Sure enough, the driver soon pulled over and started asking for directions. We headed back the way we came.
Our driver didn’t seem to be an intellectual giant. We, the foreigners, started helping by pointing out rather obvious road signs. Nevertheless, we finally made it to the Wall—it is kind of hard to miss. From Jin Shan Ling, we could walk on the Wall for about 10km to Si Ma Tei where the driver was to (hopefully) pick us up. Armed with some water and having passed such great signs as “accusing telephone” (complaints line), we bypassed the cable car and started up a humid, forested path to the Wall. Robin had warned us about the heat, but wow, the humidity left me feeling like a wet towel yearning to be wrung dry.
I suspect no matter where you go on the Great Wall, you will find tourists. Where you find tourists, you also find persistent and clingy hawkers. These particular hawkers seemed to love waiting at the tops of rises, hidden behind piles of rock so they could suddenly pop out in front of you.
“Hello, buy postcards?”
“Hello, buy beer, water?”
It’s like verses for a song where the chorus is punctuated by our feet running on ancient flagstones, yelling “Bu Yao, Bu Yao!” (translation: don’t want).
The wall itself was fabulous. It is a wondrous achievement, and the haze just made it that much more atmospheric. Planted along a mountain ridge, we could see the Wall and its periodic towers stretching for miles and then mysteriously disappearing into the grey haze. Scott and I avoided fat western tourists huffing and puffing themselves into an early grave and ran along sections of the wall to do the 10.5km journey in two hours. To those that want to try this, some of the parts are extremely steep but completely doable in dry weather.
In order to descend from the Wall at Si Ma Tei, we were presented with a couple of options. We could walk down a long, windy path or we could use a zip line and careen across a dam.
Guess which one we chose.
The couple in front of us were harnessed in, and the guy says to the woman strapping him in, “The harness isn’t on right.” The woman: “No no, you go now!” The man: “No! I know what I’m doing, it’s not on….”
The woman just pushed him off the platform.
This didn’t lend itself to being seen as a safe operation at that point. Despite this, it was quite the ride down, swaying on the harness above open water, with the Great Wall of China behind me. By the way, this is not where the title “Close your eyes and pray” comes from.
The zipline felt positively grounded compared to our drive back to Beijing.
To put it mildly, driving around Beijing is insane. We had already seen one accident on our way to the Wall and we saw another horrible accident on the way back. This wasn’t like Ulaanbaatar. There, the drivers operated as if they were riding horses; the Beijing drivers, on the other hand, stared down other cars as if they were wild animals and dared them to pull out of their way. Scott fell asleep, but I stupidly stayed awake and watched our driver almost cause two accidents, almost hit any number of pedestrians, pass cars on blind hills and inside lanes, and generally drive like a maniac.
I closed my eyes and prayed.
Our supper plan called for Sarah—who was going to camp out with Scott at the Hyatt—, Scott, and I to meet at the Drum and Bell pub and find the “Hakka” restaurant on Houhai Lake for some yummy “Beef on a leaf” and, for me, “Fish on a foil”. Having eaten for the first time after twelve hours of physical and mental exertion, it was no wonder we stumbled back to our respective hotels to pass out.
Praying to the Halls of Dispelling Clouds
Beijing, China, Friday, 28 July 2006
am now convinced Beijing is perpetually shrouded in a dismal mist. How do people live here? I’d have already jumped off the Gates of Heavenly Peace by now. So, yes, today was dismal, wet and clouded over.
The plan for today was to go to the Summer Palace and brave as much public transport as possible. Our navigational skills didn’t suck too bad as we managed to figure out our way there by noon. The dismal weather, however, leeched any enjoyment out of us and with it our will to continue through what must be a fabulous place in sunshine.
The Summer Palace was built during the Ming Dynasty and was a regular residence for the Dowager Empress as she presided over the collapse of her Empire. We wandered through extravagant palaces, gawked at gardens, but with the mist, we were simply done in. As the rain poured and created the Steps of Treacherous Falls"—as Scott described them—we realized that the nearby Halls of Dispelling Clouds were no match for the Tower of Obscuring Cloud that stood opposite.
What to do in such weather?
We headed to a bar, “Lush,” in the nearby “Student District,” supposedly run by a New Zealander. The bar was definitely quite welcoming and the menu quite inviting. Later, I tried my Mandarin phrasebook again and asked for the nearest Internet Cafe. I was horrified to see the waitress burst into fits of shy laughter and run away. I wonder if I had asked her to strip or something. Nonetheless, I did find an Internet Cafe to do what we had promised—relay the news about Robin’s party (I had talked to him last night) which was to be tonight, to the Irish girls, Jenny and Nessa.
So our plan for the evening is to meet at the Drum and Bell Pub again, then hightail it to the Kai Club in the San Li Tun bar district and finally find the bar, “Inner Affair,” for Robin’s party. We might even finish at “Lush” to round it all out!
What hijinks await us?