Day 252 - The Summer Palace, Beijing

This is SO MUCH cooler than the Forbidden City...



Right, travelling in China is a little bit different to everywhere else. South America is great because no matter what your plans, timescale or level of social skils, you'd quickly pick up a group of people to travel with and would never be on your own for long. New Zealand and Australia are trickier - but its totally possible if you're flexible (most people have travel plans pre-booked, so you need to fit in with the cool ones to stick with them). But here its tough. Its so cold, and there's hardley any backpackers at this time of year. And the travellers are loads more independant. Also, the country doesn't lend itself to travel in one direction - people scatter around all over the place going from Beijing to Xi'an, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tibet and Mongolia.

So, its kinda quiet here in Beijing as far as our social life goes. So to make up for it, Sam and I have been eating in the same AMAZING and CHEAP restaurant every night for the last 5 nights. Sick. Seriously though, everywhere else is like 4 quid a meal. Here, you can get a massive meal for 2 people for under a quid. and its amazing. AMAZING. The food is so good. If you're in beijing, get to the Nanluogu Xiang Hutong and head for 'Drum and Gong'. Its unreal.

Anyway, aside from embarrassingly going to the same restaurant every night, we've been up to a few other things. We took a 20 minute cab across town to the weekly flea market which had the most amazing chinese stuff you've ever seen. Edward-Scissorhand-style gloves for cutting paper, buddha statues made of marble, everything imaginable printed with chairman mao's face, mahjongg-brick bracelets and marlborough-light-packet ashtrays.



The poor attempt at taking a photo doesn't even come close to how cool this place was. But the bitter winter wind destroyed our spirits and after an hour (and a few rediculously high price offers) we took a long walk through this beautiful park and got a cab home.

On Monday we decided to go and check out Chairman Mao's dead body, which has been incarcerated (against his and his families will) in a glass box inside Tiananmen Square. Our hostel leaflet says we're 'minutes' from the square, but we're actually about an hour's walk from it. So we did the long walk, with our feet turned into blocks of ice and our fingers about to drop off, and when we got there we found that the place is shut on Mondays. Along with the two museums on the square. great. so we walked back. then went out for dinner again (of course).

But Tuesday was a total highlight. The Forbidden City, in the centre of Beijing, was something of a disappointment for both me and sam. It was just plain boring. Kinda pretty, but nothing that special. On TV, its colourful and vivid and empty of tourists and sparkling in the sun. In the flesh, its overrun, grey and smoggy, lifeless and in the process of being renovated. Nothing special. So when we decided to go to the Summer Palace, we kinda expected much of the same.



Now, a cab there is about 4 quid. Neither sam nor I can afford to pay that when the bus there is 14p. So we get the bus number from reception, get them write down the name of our destination in chinese characters, and hop on the number 834. Its SO embarrassing not being able to speak the language. But I thrust the piece of paper under the drivers nose and he studies it for about 30 seconds (they all seem to take ages to read here - taxi driver too) then waves us onto the bus.

Its rammed with chinese people. Half asleep at the back. The other half staring at us. I literally can't tell you what its like to be in china and to be a western person. Every 4th person STARES AT YOU. solidly. unashamedly. sometimes with a grimace. sometimes with a laugh. the odd chinese girl will shout 'HERRO' at me from across the street, but mostly its just stares. it can be a bit creepy actually, but we're used to it. but on the bus, it was mad. I didn't know where to look. Sam takes a seat, I stay standing, and all eyes are on duncan. But 45 minutes later, we're shooed off the bus by the female conductor and pointed in the right direction.



So, first impressions were a bit rubbish. Its spread over a hillside overlooking a lake, and there's no sign of a lake, and the usual grey, peeling, unimpressive temples litter our view. But pretty soon its different. One temple is full of 20 massive stone sculptures of scary looking buddhist deities - some holding dragons and dogs and stuff like that. The others are spread across this hillside with hundreds of rocks inbetween, with little paths and tunnels weaving through them.





As we approach the summit of the hill, we see the reason why this place is so amazing. An enormous frozen lake stands at the bottom of the hill, overlooked by some beautiful temples and pagodas, gleaming alive in the reflection of the setting sun. It dazzling. People are scattered across the ice, wandering from one side of the lake to the other, where a beautiful bridge spans the ice with 12 arches under it.







We slowly meander down the hillside to the level of the ice, where we venture out to wander over to the island, but underfoot its a bit creaky, so sam decides to bail out. We later found out that its only 2 feet deep, but still. We walk around and catch the beautiful sunset against the backdrop of the bridge's hundred statues of lions. And two hours later we're home after another amusing bus ride.





Two of the guys we met, Phil and Rix from Denmark, seem to be a very bad influence on me - getting me totally blind drunk one night (I have video evidence of asking some dude if I could do karaoke, but him only having chinese songs - I NEVER DO KARAOKE). My last memory was at 11pm when Rix pulls out a vacuum-packed chicken foot and I draw the card which means I have to eat it. I didn't. And then two nights later, me and Rix end up spending 4 hours in some bar drinking tequila shots "the irish way" - where you snort the salt, drink the tequila and sqeeze the lemon in your eye. Embarassingly we returned to the hostel at 4am, laughing like school kids and waking everyone in the 8-bed dorm up.





I also went to get my beard trimmed - one of my favourite backpacking experiences. Yeah yeah, I could buy a beard trimmer. but its so cool, walking into a place where you don't speak the language and don't know the customs, and asking to have your beard trimmed. On this occassion, they wanted to firstly wash my hair (cheeky) - i said no. Then they wanted to cut my hair - i said no. then comb my hair - come on. but eventually they just trimmed my beard. labouriously for 25 minutes. and then after being stared at for the whole time by the staff, I was asked to pose for a photo with the hairdresser who had clearly never cut a western person's hair. It was sweet.

The whole reason we've been staying in Beijing for so long was because we forgot to apply for our vietnamese visas in advance, so had to do it here. and they're taking a week to be processed, and you shouldn't travel china without your passport. But the week is up and after collecting our visas (man - my passport has SO MANY STAMPS in it now) we get a cab to the train station where we're heading for Xi'an, home of the Terracotta Warriors.