Hi all, well after the hairy few days Pete told you all about in Hanoi, we were finally on our way to China. It's a country that I've wanted to visit for years now and as we set down in Beijing Airport I was beside myself with excitement. The airport was filled with Olympic and Paralympic signage and scores of young volunteers practicing their English with the arriving visitors. There was a real welcoming buzz about the place. On leaving the airport we negotiated the subway and the streets with little difficulty and within an hour or two we found our hostel. We were quite amused at our rooms ensuite bathroom, which didn't leave much to the imagination. Instead of walls made of plaster or brick, it was made of glass, with a see thru curtain on both sides, slightly covering all angles except the actual loo. This photo was taken from the bed!!!
But none the less, we were happy enough due to the fact that the hostel had actually overbooked our cheaper room with no bathroom and upgraded us to this see thru loo room without cost...
The next day we headed to Tiananem Square, our hostel was less then 10 min walk away. As we passed through the Front Gate (Photo below), miles of Chinese history and culture lay directly ahead along this straight road...
Beyond The Front Gate is the infamous Tiananem Square. Tiananem Square does exactly what it say's on the tin!! It's a Square! A very large square at that, well actually the largest public square in the world as it happens,but a 'square' non the less. It's full of .... eh..... space... which is probably a good thing because 100's of millions of Chinese and Foreigners visit it every year....
We continued north passing Chairman Mao's Mausoleum and up ahead you see his imposing portrait in the distance of 'The Gate of Heavenly Peace'.
The Square is very well protected with police at each entrance scanning and frisking every visitor and plain clothed cops patrolling the square listening for any word of discontent, in other words you need to be on your best behaviour.
After walking through 'The Gate of Heavenly Peace' we entered the Forbidden City,
so called because it was off limits for 500 years. It is the largest and best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China and was home to the Ming and Qing dynasties of emperors. They only left these grounds when absolutely necessary and the huge Moat kept everyone else out...
Here's a birds eye view to give you an idea the huge scale of 'The Forbidden City'
Our next biggy was the Great Wall, I couldn't wait to see it. But as with all tourist attractions around the world we expected to be one of hundreds of tourists visiting the wall and the idea of seeing it in solitude seemed to be nothing but a false hope. However on advice of one of our hostel hosts we went for the lesser touristy and more rugged routes in the hope of this. And after a 2 hour drive and a very steep and inaccessible climb up to reach the wall, our breaths were taken away.
Yes the STEEP climb attributed to this shortness of breath but the shear beauty and amazement of the view of the snaking wall before us was so out of this world that neither words nor photos could do it true justice and to make it a once in a life time feeling there was no one else there. Amazing....
It was an awesome sight and continued to be for over 12km of steep climbs, wobbly descents and unsecured surfaces. We passed through 30 watch towers to complete our hike. As you can see in the photo above there is 3 watch towers ahead.... so only 27 to go. Oh and it got steeper and steeper.
The last Watch Tower you can see in the distance behind us, was less then half way of our walk!!!
Over the 4 hour hike we met no more then 10 tourists and a healthy handful of Mongolian touts selling the usual T-shirts and hats thrown in. We also met a guy from London who was returning home from working in Japan on the Trans Siberian Railway and after a bit of chat we realised is surname was McGrath and his family was from Galway.. Well China may be big but it sure is a small world!!! This was an amazing day, I feel privileged to have been able climb just a fraction of it virtually tourist free and to soak in it's stunning views, this was one of the most memorable experiences of my life...
On our last day in Beijing we headed out to The Birdsnest Stadium.
It was the first day of the Paralympics and we had high hopes to get in and see some of the action, but unfortunately all tickets for the days events were sold out. Some of the tickets for the coming days were going for as little as €5, not bad value. As the games were happening they televised them live on these massive TV screens in the Olympic flame building adjacent to the Stadium. Here's Pete watching a spot of Bowls..
So we left Beijing with very fond memories and were impressed with the city itself, it was easy to get around, the people were so friendly and helpful, the streets were surprisingly clean, there was less people spitting then we expected and best of all the food was superb. However we're quite sure we would have seen a completely different city if the Olympics hadn't been hosted here. So we boarded our 12 hour sleeper train to X'ian to see another one of Chinas must see sights, 'The Army of the Terricotta Warriors'. Stay tuned for China Part 2 coming soon...
And now for a bit of toilet humour...
No comments:
Post a Comment