Well it is wednesday and I have officially ended my tour of the trans-siberian railway. I completed the 7800 km odd journey over 23 days visiting 6 places along the way. You would think that I would have had enough of long train journeys. Nahh I have another 48hr one in 4 days.
Anyway after having an interesting time in Mogolia at the Gers and in their capital Ulaanbaatar and using my first squt public toilests with no doors and lit by candles and paying for the privilage (we you need to go you need to go) we bordered the tain again for Hohot (the capital of inner mongolia in northern china). An overnight trip was fine and we reached the border around lunch time. The mongolian side was ok but bloody hot. It only took 1 and a half hours. It was then onto the chinease. With this we got to exit the train while they go and change the boggies. If 40 degree heat lining up outside until eventually making it into the building where passing through immigration without a problem except for them instead of them stamping my visa on the visa they decided to take my only free page left in my passport and use it. Ahhh I may have trouble later in my trip.
Upon entering Hohot later that night to the lights of Las vegas which was quite different to what I expected (I was thinking a little town not 1.4 million people place), we got to out hotel and headed out for some local street Kababs. Even though I had no idea what I was eating it tasted pretty good.
After a restful night sleep on what they call a bed (it was just timber no matress) we ventured out to the temples, had mongolian hotpot (who goes to a resturant to cook their own food, we do) then ventured to the newest and biggest museumin the north the hothot history museum. The building itself was quite impressive, as there was no expense spared. I got a little bored after the dinosaur and a few relic rooms that Taz and I ended up watching scooby doo in chinease. Very interesting.
That night we were back onthe road again for our last train trip together to beijing. It seemed like a brand new train and alot better then the ones we had been travelling on over the past 3 weeks. One last nights sleep and we woke up entering the smoggy suburbs of beijing. It was that bad in the morning that I could only see the sun as a red dot.
Beijing we were happyily greeted by our honcho who had trouble understanding what we said in english but could speak it perfectly we were off to our hostel. After a quick shower I was off to see the sights and to hopefully organise my next part of my trip.
Walking with the others we found the forbidden city, tian'amen square and the giant portrait of Mao. All quite impresssive and I definately felt like I was one of only a few westeners in the city. We went to do Maos moselleum nut it was closed for renevations (the guy is not alive who cares about what the building looks like).
After leaving the safety of the boys I entered the forbidden city. Taking 4 hours to walk round (that is still not seeing everything) seeing the temples, the concubines places, relics, gardens, statues and lots of chinease people doing really weird photos I came to the conclusion that there was definately no expense spared on this place by the emporers in years gone by.
Then the fun started. I went to the train station to by my ticket to xian (what I wanted the next stop to be). After lining up for about an hour, the lady informed me that I could by a ticket but line up again in 2 hrs. Ahh. I eneded up going back to the hotel and trying my luck again through their reservation centre. Only hard seat for 10 days and there was no way of telling if I could then get out of xian. I started to think I would have to head strat to hanoi.
After a restless nights sleep and a mini mental breakdown while talking to mum, I decided to give it one more go.
After visiting the summer palace of the emperors (yet again one husge place with no expense spared), however it did feel very peaceful until you went up to the pergoda and could see the skyscrappers just metres away from the park.
Catching a taxi back with Tim (and getting ripped off in the process) I decided to walk around looking for the foreign ticket office. After about 1 hour feeling like I was in a pin ball machine game I eventually came across someone who could speak relatively good english who informed me I had to buy tickets to hanoi (I had decided to get out of here) next door at the railway hotel.
Success at last. The lovely lady next door new exactly what I wanted and within a matter of minutes I had a ticket in my hand to Hanoi, Vietnam for Sunday. Yeah.
Well thats me so far in china. Will write again before I leave sunday for another long train ride.
Till then take care Lisa xx
