So, we arrived in Beijing and I got sick about three seconds after we landed. No joke. Between waking up at 3am during our temple stay, four hours of sleep the next night and landing in Beijing on an "extremely unhealthy" day measured on Blair's China Air Quality App, I have come down with the most disgusting hacking, gagging cough of my life. I sound like I've smoked three packs a day since I was four years old. Needless to say, Blair has found me irresistible over the past week and a half!! The silver lining? In China, it is not considered rude or disgusting to hack up a lugie and spit it on the side walk...so I guess I fit right in.
We have talked to so many people who have raved about Beijing. "You will absolutely love it", "It's such a cool city!". I don't know why. I just don't get it. Don't get me wrong, we are glad we went, just to experience it. We visited the Forbidden City, Tienenmen Square, Temple of Heaven, Beihai Park...we hunted out dumplings and street food down secret alleyways occupied only by locals...we biked along the chaotic streets...we haggled for goods at the Silk Street Markets and enjoyed a vibrant Kung Fu theatre performance. We walked out of the markets with a watch, sunglasses and a whole new appreciation for sales and negotiations. After three days we could not wait to leave the disgusting dirtiness of it all, the constant honking of cars, mopeds and scooters, the smog so thick you could cut it with a knife. I would never ever want to live in a city like Beijing. I was excited to say hello, and even more excited to say goodbye to China's capital city.
One nice thing it did offer us was close proximity to the Great Wall. We took a day trip out to Jinshanling and hiked along 6km of the wall to Simatai. We avoided the most tourist heavy site to visit the wall and instead opted for a location three hours outside the city where the air was a bit clearer, the countryside was untouched and we shared the experience with very few other tourists. The trip did not disappoint! The views were spectacular and the hike was exhausting. We went with a group of about 30 other travelers--most were around our age, and ranged from British, German, Australian, Spanish and a slew of other countries. Randomly enough, the only other American couple on the trip was from Chicago as well! We went for dinner with them that evening and went clubbing with them a week later in Shanghai! Small world.
From Beijing we took an overnight train to Xi'an to see the army of Terra Cotta Warriors. The train was a fun experience--we stayed in a soft sleeper car that had four bunk beds. The couple sleeping on the bottom bunks didn't speak a word of English, so we just kept to ourselves and enjoyed watching a movie on the Kindle. We are watching an iconic or historic movie based on each country we are visiting along the way--in preparation for Vietnam we watched Apocalypse Now. We have been on the go for the entire trip, so a twelve hour ride without wifi or anything else to do finally gave us the opportunity to relax and shut off for a bit. We slept through the night and arrived in Xi'an around 8 the next morning.
Xi'an had a similar vibe to Beijing with fewer sites to be seen. We checked out the Bell Tower near our hostel, the city wall and the Muslim Quarter. The Muslim Quarter is a neighborhood packed with street after street of vendors selling souvineers, fruits and vegetables, street food and piles of cow organs. There were tables piled high with lungs, livers and kidneys for purchase. We decided to pass on picking up a nice lung for dinner when we saw the number of flies swarming the unrefrigerated meat and a shopkeeper hacking away at part of a cow on the dirt floor of the shed behind the shop.
We spent a day visiting the Terra Cotta Warriors museum. The scale of the excavation site is massive--so much larger than I expected. We had seen hundreds of photos of this archaeological site, but the scale in person was even more impressive.
Our next stop was Huangshan Mountains. This was the portion of our China tour that both Blair and I were most excited about--a chance to finally leave the cities behind and enjoy the natural beauty that we prefer so much more than the man-made beauty we had seen thus far. It took about four hours to hike from the base up to our hotel atop the mountains where we would stay for two nights. The hike was a never ending STEEP staircase that started in the wooded mountain side and ended at the peak that we presumed offered stunning views of the surrounding landscape. Unfortunately, the mountainous terrain was covered in a thick blanket of clouds so we couldn't see much of anything that first day. Neither of us were too disappointed because we were exhausted from the hike up. We explored a bit and then relaxed for the rest of the night.
Because we had selected the cheap option to stay in the dorms, Blair was in the guys room and I was in the girls room next door. Between the wood planks covered in a blanket that they called "beds"; the chorus of of melodious snorers in each room, 100 degree++ temps because people wanted to dry their shoes using the space heater, and the 1.5 year old that was staying in my room having a complete melt down at 1am--Blair and I didn't get much sleep. Still cloudy, but significantly better than the day prior, we hiked all morning and afternoon with a nice long nap in between. Then we got down on our knees and prayed that God would provide us nice, new, QUIET roommates for the second night. It must be because we were nearly touching heaven at the top of these magnificent mountains, but the Big Guy heard and promptly delivered! We both had all new roomies and met a fun US/Chinese couple to spend the evening with!
We woke up after a restful night of sleep at 5am, caught a beautiful sunrise and headed for the "Grand Canyon" hike to beat the crowds that would be swarming the mountain later that day for the Chinese National Holiday. All I really need to say is "Spectacular!!", and show the breathtaking photos of sheer cliffs jutting out of the low lying clouds. The experience was other worldly...this mountain range was actually the inspiration for the floating mountains from Avitar because they seemed to hover weightlessly on top of the clouds.
Our last expedition in Huangshan was to climb to the top of Celestial Peak, one of the largest peaks in the range. The path made a straight vertical ascent up the peak on steps cut out of the sheer cliff face. Once near the top, a narrow two-way path with simple rope railings led to the top of the peak. A hundred foot drop on either side of the path offered quite a thrill and a healthy dose of vertigo and jello legs--but the risk was well worth the reward! Stunning 360-degree views of the surrounding mountains awaited us at the top! The trail leading down the backside of the peak offered additional thrills as we ducked under rock arches, shuffled sideways to fit through narrow crevices and lowered ourselves down stairs backwards because they were to steep to descend facing forward.
The next day back in Huangshan City offered a relaxing day of recovery complete with an amazing foot massage and exploring the Tunxi Old City shops and food stands. That night we hopped a flight to Shanghai for our last two days in China. I was expecting a city similar to Beijing that would be a dirty and chaotic mess, but I was completely blown away by what I found. We visited the French Concession shopping area that was filled with wealthy foreign ex-pats and tourists and far too rich for our blood and then wandered through the city parks, E. Nanjing Pedestrian Street and The Bund. All were modern, clean and beautiful! We met up with Will and Val (the Chicago travelers we met on the Great Wall) along with two of their friends on our last night and went to a HOT night club right in the heart of the Bund along the river. We couldn't think of a better way to say farewell to China than such a fun night out with new friends!
***WORLD NOMADS' WEBSITE IS HAVING ISSUES, SO I AM CURRENTLY UNABLE TO ADD MORE PHOTOS FROM THE SECOND WEEK IN CHINA. I WILL ADD THOSE IN AS SOON AS THEY FIX THE SITE!
