Hi All,
Day 1
Bit tired and grumpy today. German scientist in room is a snorer. So much for my 4 bed dorm being pretty good odds not to get a snorer... Makes me think of shark attack statistics when the improbable happens. Goes something like this...the odds of getting bitten by a shark are 1 in 11.5 million (yahoo) which is not much comfort when you are in the water and one is hanging off your leg. Same goes for snorers in dorm rooms.
Walked around to the front entrance of the Forbidden palace then tianamen square then onto metro to Summer palace. Cutting winds today and I was not really keen to be out wandering around. The metro gave us some relief before heading to the more sheltered summer palace. It was a good choice.
Our train tickets to Tibet turned up today but not tibet travel permit which is a bit concerning.
Day 2
Lhama temple. Took it easy today and headed to a large active Buddhist temple near the hostel. It was a formal princes residence converted into a temple so was quite impressive. Not as impressive as the 18m Buddha cut from a single sandlewood tree. The actual section of wood is 26m as there also is 8m below the ground!
Beijing Hot pot. Decided to try the very popular and no 1 hotpot restuarant around the corner from the hostel. Weren't exactly sure what to expect. It turns out that hot pot is cook yourself in a flame warmed cooking pot of hot stock. The food is thinly sliced to cook more quickly. We had to ask the only waitress on the floor to order some nice sliced mutton, cuttlefish dumplings, vegetables and bean noodles. The pots were delivered and we waited for the waitress to remove the lids and give us instructions on how long to cook the food. We asked for instructions. It was a real challenge with the food chasing it around in the hot stock trying to encourage it onto my plate. Chopsticks are hard enough without adding slippery food to complicated things. The dumplings we quite round which presented a real problem and add a bowl of satay sauce and the yellow tablecloth rapidly started looking like a work of modern art and I was rapidly running out of table items to cover up the stains. Vanessa thought it was funny and I was getting more and more embarrassed as the meal went along. Oh forgot to mention the noodles which unwrapped as you lifted them out of the bowl and then flicked satay sauce all over the place. I think they should give tourists smocks like kids in kindergarden when they are painting. The slices of orange at the end were the highlight of the evening. It was a completely unsatisfying experience. When we got back to the hostel we ordered some meat dumplings which was much,much better.
Day 3
Chinese cooking classes. We needed a break from sightseeing so signed up for a chinese cooking class. Was a great investment as our unpronouncably named chinese cooking teacher took us around a market and described how various items were used in chinese medicine as well as selecting meat and vegetables for us to use in the cooking class. We met up with 4 american (Mother, 2 daughters, 1 friend) who also wanted to learn some chinese cooking skills. Cleaver is the chopping tool of choice! Watch those fingers as you chop. We wok cooked a few dishes after the teacher demonstrated how it should be done. She corrected us as we went and generally it was 'faster,faster,faster' when cooking in the wok. We even ate our own cooking and it tasted good. Won't give away the cooking secrets at this point.
Found that the city area had really been cleaned up and we were disappointed about the lack of roadside cooking. There was a row of ultra clean stalls that sold snake and scorpions on skewers as well as the normal meats. Strange. We wanted the grime but there was no way we would eat from the street vendors when their food was presented that way but now it has been cleaned up we won't eat it as it is too santised. Fussy!
Ended up just eating at the hostel again. The food is good and cheap.
We had been sweating not having our tibet travel permits but they came in an email. It seems that the permit was ready a few days ago but the scanner was broken to make a copy to fax. A big relief.
Have been doing a little planning for the next couple of months. So much to see. Where do we draw the line?
Day 4
Walking the great wall. We watched the weather forecast and this was going to be our warmest day in Beijing during this stay and more importantly the wind was also low. A 615am start and then 3hrs drive (140km) to Jinshanling and a less touristy section of the beijing wall. We walked 12km to Simatai and then a little further as we missed our turnoff and headed up the steepest hill on the hike. The english speaking guide who didn't walk with us gave complex instructions rather than saying 'after the river crossing turn right'. Lost in the translation.
The hype was correct. We hiked with 4 others and the only others on the wall were a couple of chinese tourists and farmers who tried without success to sell souvenirs to us.
The wall was really steep in places and followed the ridge line of the mountains it followed. A remarkable effort.
Back in the land of dodgy toilets. Think there might be some squat toilets in rural china which may challenge egypt for the title of most disgusting toilet on our trip.
We remembered on the way back to Beijing to start looking for the solar eclipse and just at this time a small crescent disappeared from the bottom of the sun. It didn't change much in size so we thought it was a bit crappy. Vanessa checked online when we got back to the hostel and found that the best time was at 437pm which gave us about 5 minutes to get out and find the sun. This was a problem as it was on the other side of the forbidden city. Luckily we found a spot viewing a large stupa with the sun showing and sure enough there was only a thin crescent of sun left at the top with the rest dark. Then it dipped below the forbidden city walls finishing our view of the longest solar eclipse until the next millenium.
We will be leaving for the roof of the world Tibet tomorrow evening at 930pm.It will be another marathon train trip of 47hours and 28minutes and not a seccond more or if you prefer mileage then it will be 4064km plus 1m
As the altimeter approaches 17000feet or 5181m at the highest point of the train journey we plan to be lazying around sucking oxygen from plastic hoses which will be situated beneath our beds just for the hell of it.We already know what it feels like to be at this altitude.
http://www.chinatibettrain.com/
Bye,
David and Vanessa
