Beijing

This was our first stop in China, and it was a great introduction to
the country. We had a great hostel that we stayed in, there's plenty
of public transport, lots to see and do, fantastic food for very
little money, and the weather was pretty good. It was very easy to get
on with things - we found local people very helpful -for example if
we were near a tourist attraction, but couldn't quite see which way to
go, people would invariably point us in the right direction. the
Olympics last year has probably ensured that the whole city is used to
foreign tourists and giving them a helping hand, and contributed to
the number of signs in English - on the metro and inside the buses for
example, showing the route.

It's good that things are set up well, because sightseeing in Beijing
can still be quite tiring - just due to the sheer scale of the city
and its major sights. On our first day, we tried to get to Tiananmen
square. We got a bus to a spot very close by, but there were so many
people around, the police had cordoned off certain routes to manage
the stream of people and carry out security checks. So it took us
about half an hour just to get into the square. Even then, with
thousands of people, plus floats and giant screens showing a kind of
Chinese travelogue. We had caught the tail end of the celebrations of
60 years of communist china, and lots of Chinese were still on holiday
(lucky we weren't around on October the 1st when foreign tourists were
banned from leaving their hotels). We pushed on into the Forbidden
city, and spent a few hours exploring this labyrinthine palace, which
covers a whole city "block" - making it about a km square, and the
various exhibitions within. It was teeming with tourists, both Chinese
and foreigners, which is a far cry from a century or so ago, when we
would all have been put to death for setting foot inside it! There was
the odd exception to this rule, for example when an Anglo-French army
sacked Beijing in the 1860s and trashed the place - the signs around
the palace point out the damage frequently. Actually, we aren't the
only ones to blame - most major old Chinese monuments seem to have
burned down frequently. This explains the large metal vats outside the
major buildings, which were permanently kept full of water in case of
fire - in winter they were covered with quilts an fires were lit
underneath to make sure it didn't freeze over. As we'd not thought to
bring any lunch, we survived on ice cream from the few vendors around
the place -until we left, when we tucked into a couple of tasty
minced beef pastries from a street stall.

Next day was another marathon session at the summer palace - a long
bus ride out of the centre, which gave us a chance to see the new
China springing up - big ultra-modern blocks of offices, shops and
apartments. The place has an artificial hill at the North end, which
was again like a 3-dimensional maze to explore - although the style
was somewhat different and the scale larger, it reminded me somehow of
Park Guell in Barcelona, if you've ever been there. Once we got
through that section, there was a quiet spot by the lake where we
could escape the crowds for a while and have some lunch (remembered to
bring some food this time) before walking along a 700m corridor
decorated with over 10,000 paintings. The sheer scale of the
craftsmanship required to create not only these palaces, but also most
of the Buddhist temples we visited is astonishing, there are carved
roof tiles, marble staircases and balustrades, statues galore, metal
incense burners or water holders, frescoes, decorated flagstones,
stone bridges screens, furniture, formal gardens here and there.
Practically everything is decorated, and the motifs chosen all have
symbolic religious or superstitious significance. Many of the wooden
buildings are held together without nails, so require excellent design
and carpentry. It's clear that many of them have been restored
recently and/or are undergoing further restoration (this especially
applies to the temples, which were neglected and sometimes destroyed
or damaged in the earlier years of the Communist era. So now is a
great time to be a skilled craftsman in China!

Of course, we had to visit the Great Wall - there are several places
near Beijing to do so , depending on what sort of experience you want.
We went for the middle road- a nicely photogenic restored section, but
one that if you get there earlyish is not too crowded with other
tourists and hawkers. Plus we got to toboggan down a mile long slide
to get back to the car park! 3 things to know about the Great Wall:
1. It's not a single wall, but a number of different walls built at
different times to different specifications
2. It was never really designed to keep the marauding hordes out -
just as well, be cause it didn''t - three of China's imperial
dynasties were founded by invaders from the North
3. You can't see it from space
Nevertheless, it's still an impressive feat of construction, snaking
its way over high mountains for several thousand miles.

The rest of the time we mixed the old with the new - visiting the main
lama temple (funnily enough no mention of the Dalai Lama...) and the
temple of heaven with its echo wall, where you can whisper to another
person 50 m away and the sound travels round the wall to meet them -
but also going to see the new shopping and entertainment districts (at
one expat hangout we paid twice as much for dessert and a drink as we
had done for any of our slap up meals in local restaurants) and the
Olympic site. We visited the latter after dark, which was good idea
as the area is dazzlingly lit up, showing off the bird's nest and the
water cube to great effect. These buildings are destined to become as
much a symbol of Beijing as the Wall and Tiananmen square. We also
explored what's left of the hutongs - Beijing's traditional web of
alleys and courtyards where all aspects of daily life have taken place
fro hundreds of years. Some have already been cleared to build big
blocks, others have been cleaned up and prettified into tourist
hangouts - with shops, bars, restaurants, guesthouses and so on, which
may undermine their "authenticity", but gives them a better chance of
survival, and others have been given designated heritage buildings,
which again gives them a chance of survival.

All in all, it was with a little reluctance that we booked our tickets
to our next destination and checked out of the Red Lantern to resume
our travels.