Tuesday June 30 - Beijing

Life on the road is a continuous series of events with hardly a breath in between. So, true to form, we were up and off to see the Summer Palace, leaving the hotel around 8 am. The Summer Palace is a huge parkland attachd to a series of palace temples, gardens, pavillions, lakes, bridges, and corridors which were the summer home of the emperors and originally started as an imperial garden in 1750. It's 290 hectares is nestled at the foot of the hills in the nothwest suburbs of Beijing. For a city that has little water, the park provides a pleasant playground. There are pleasure boats and paddle boats crossing the lake which takes up about three quarters of the total area of the park. The lake was deepened and expanded by Emperor Qianlong in the 18th C who organized 100,000 labourers to work on it. The palace has suffered many attacks; the English and French troops damaged it in the Second Opium Wars; and foreign troops again ransacked it during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. It was given a major overhaul in 1949. We walked down the long Corridor on Longevity Hill and visited the various palaces and temples and climbed the many steps up to the magnificent Tower of Buddhist Incense with beautiful views over the lake. We saw the Clear and Peaceful Boat which was first built in 1775 and is cared out of a "shadowy blue stone", marble. From here we took a boat across the lake to Southlake Island and the Dragon King Temple. Then we walked across the Seventeen-Arch Bridge with its balustrades carved with 544 lions, all in different positions. And we walked past more pavillions and the Bronze Ox which is made to keep the water under control. Then we had a completed our circle. We bought an icecream and sat in the shade of a tree facing out on the majestic lake before exiting through the Grand Theatre and the Hall of Benevolence and Longetivity where the courtyard was decorated with bronze animal sculptures, including the mythical "qilin". It was unfortunate many buildings are "barricaded" so you can only "peer in" through the nose-smudged windows like a guilty child trying to get a glimpse of some fairyland through a glass window. We took the Truck back into Beijing and to the Forbidden City. We, along with Will and Aussie John, decided to walk around the City to Tianamen Square and enter the Forbidden City at the south gate. As our time was short, we took a little train-like vehicle around to the Square. Tiananmen Square was a little anti-climatical. Its just one huge square in the true centre of Beijing. The main attraction is Chairman Mao's portrait which stares imploringly down on you with the intent of encouraging everyone who sees it to believe in him....and some still do. In the middle of the square is a tall obelisk which is a memorial to the People's Heroes, and then there are stately buildings such as museums surrounding the square. The whole area is massive, and its all sealed off, and I think closed at night time. In order to access the Square you have to go though a security check including the metal detector and x-ray machine. In the Square Ray and I were asked to have our pictures taken with a group of Chinese then a little girl came up to me and asked if her father could take a picture of her and me. I think we visit the Square again with Sundowners so may have a better description then. Otherwise, it wasn't very busy; but it was a weird feeling to realize where we were. We walked through the large arches leading from Tianamen into the Forbidden City. I don't think there can be another site in the world the size or magnificence of The Forbidden City, the home of the emperors in the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is a truly amazing site. It is designed in the traditional Chinese style and is named because it was "off limits" to the common people for over 500 years. The huge area contains highly ornamental halls, or palaces facing north/south with courtyards and gardens in between. The west and east side buildings are living quarters, including libraries, temples, theatres and gardens, but these are now mainly exhibitions of various Chinese cutural or historical treasures. Some of the main halls are barricaded but you can peer in to see period furniture and other ornaments. It is all spectacular. Unfortunately, by the end of it all, we were suffering badly from information overload. You definitely can't do it all at one time to do it justice. Depending on your interest in Chinese history, several short visits are definitely best. But it is truly a magnificent feat that must cost a ton to maintain. As we walked around we tried to imagine the staff the emperor must have had to keep it in working order, thousands, I would think. I said previously that overland trips are constant motion. We caught a taxi back from the Forbidden City to the hotel, showered and refreshed quickly, and met everyone in the lobby of the hotel for our departure dinner. We walked to a Korean restaurant and had delicious barbecued meat, Korean style, with some rather sparse vegetables all of which we cooked ourselves on a small barbequeue in the centre of our table. Fun! Then Ray and I came back to the hotel, but I gather the group went to some rather expensive spots and ended up back at the hotel sitting on the steps outside of the lobby drinking beer. Its marvellous the way you can freely move around with your drink, sit outside, etc. I think a beer costs Y2 in the store to buy, and anywhere from Y4 to Y12 in restaurants. There really aren't any "bars" as such, mainly all restaurants, in this area anyway.

Monday June 29 - Cruelty to Animals - Qing Feng Hotel

Today we had an experience that so upset me, it deserves a separate post. We were sitting enjoying lunch in the hotel's restaurant when someone said: "They've thrown a cat in the water." I looked outside and saw a pool of murky, green, water, which looked like a swimming pool, but was probably a fish tank because of the colour of the water, but I don't really know what it was, and there, sure enough, was a tiny little cat swimming frantically around the edges trying desperately to crawl up the shier concrete sides. A group of women and men were watching and laughing. At first, I didn't realize what was going on; then I realized they were keeping the cat in the pool. I went out of the restaurant and found the door to the pool of water. Of course, no one spoke English and I didn't speak any form of Chinese, but through sign language I confirmed they had thrown the cat in and weren't about to let it out. Angrily, I told the women they were being cruel, and how would they like it if I threw them in the water. They laughed heartily thinking it was all a big joke. I went back to the restaurant and spoke with our guide. I asked him: "Why did they throw the cat in?" He said he didn't know, he didn't understand it, and he didn't want to know why. I sat down. Then I watched one of the men deliberately push the cat down as it tried to climb up the steps out of the water. Incensed, I went back out to the laughing, joking, group around the pool. Again, really angry, I told them how cruel they were being, and to pull the cat out. I understood the cat had eaten a fish. I think the fish was probably meant for cooking, not sure, there were a bunch of these sleek, blue, fish in an aquarium at one end of the pool. I went back in to the restaurant and asked our guide if there were any superstitions, cultural issues, etc. about a cat eating a fish. He said "No", and Sue Mei said "No". I sat down. I was very aware of being in a foreign country with very different cultures, etc. I reasoned all this through in my head. Then I couldn't stand it. How could a group of 10 westerners sit and watch this happening and do nothing. If I didn't react, I would be so hypacritical, apathetic, and all the worst adjectives I criticize others for being. I spoke again to our guide. I knew I was putting him in an awkward position, but he got up and went out to the pool and got the people to "fish" the cat out in a tadpole net. I relaxed. Then, as I watched, the man who pulled the cat out, took the net and trapped the cat inside it. I was up, out of my chair and heading out towards him when Ray said disbelievingly: "He's strangled the cat!" I couldn't look, I couldn't stand being anywhere near these cruel people, and I stormed out of the dining room and went back to the Truck. Eventually Ant came out and said: "The cat's alive", and Ray told me the cat did get up after a while and slink behind a bush. I have no idea whether the cat lived or died. I just know that these people, all of them, who were laughing around the pool, were being totally cruel, and from what I could fathom, for no purpose other than the cat ate a fish. Feed the cat properly and perhaps it wouldn't be so keen to eat the fish!! As you can imagine, I was really, really, upset, and whether I acted rightly or wrongly I don't care. I just care that a poor little cat was being treated most cruelly by a bunch of anger-ridden Chinese who were taking their own problems out on it. When we arrived in Beijing and were listening to the English news on CCTV9, I heard that someone has just introduced legislation for "Animal Protection" in China. So...I'm not that far out. PS: I heard another story about this hotel that turned my stomach. I crossed the parking lot at one point and saw a dwarf sweeping up. I smiled at him. He gave me a puzzled look and I thought to myself: "This person hasn't had many people smile at him." Afterwards, Olivia and I were discussing the cat episode and she told me she had seen the dwarf sweeping as well, then the next thing she saw was someone come up to him and start beating him because it seemed that he wasn't sweeping correctly....or something. Anyway, apparently someone did come out of the hotel and stop this. It seems as if there is a little pocket of cruelty around that hotel.

Monday June 29 - The Eastern Qing Tombs

Today we are visiting the Eastern Qing Tombs, but first breakfast in the hotel. It was Y10 for dumplings. Not our favourite, so we decided to investigate the small village beside the hotel. Just outside the hotel grounds we met Su Mei and Emily who were also looking for something exciting to eat for breakfast. It was Su Mei who noticed the street food; and we ended up eating a delicious breakfast. We bought it from a woman who had a circular propane burner attached to the back of a scooter in a small 3-sided hut thing. She cooked something like a pancake mix spread circularly over the hot plate, then she broke 2 eggs over that; once that cooked she turned the pancake over and painted a sauce mix on the pancake; then she sprinkled chillies, onions, coriander, and a tasty crispy biscuit thing over the pancake, folded it up, put it in a light small plastic bag, and off we went, munching on the pancake/omellette like mixture, changing it from hand to hand because it was so hot. It was also so good! We sold a couple of the other Truck group on it too before we left to visit our first tomb. The Eastern Qing Tombs are a royal graveyard containing the tombs of 5 emperors, 74 empresses, and 136 concubines. We saw 3 or 4 of the tomb sites in the area including Cixi's. This maybe wasn't as elaborate as some of the emperorors' tombs but the floral displays at the tomb were beautiful. Some of the tombs were plundered by the military and others around the 1920s. Also interesting was the avenue leading to the tombs which was lined with stately lions, elephants, horses, and camels as well as various Chinese military personnel. The underground "palaces" or "tombs" were spectacular and I think everyone really enjoyed the morning. We ate lunch at the hotel, then set off for Beijing, stopping outside one of the gates of the tombs for Truck pictures. Then it was a serious drive into the chaos of Beijing. We noticed a number of "dump trucks' racing down the streets of the towns just as crazy as they do in Uxbridge; and we noticed crazy drivers driving on the inside lane, the opposite way, on a wide 4-lane road! We also noticed numerous "fender-benders". To say the Chinese are horrible drivers, is an understatement!! They are, generally speaking "awful". The energy level in the Truck picked up as we neared the city centre. Beijing, on a "drive in" impression is a fantastic, modern city with huge highrise apartment blocks, wide treed avenues, and colourful shop signs and billboards. Our hotel, the Huguosi Hotel is fabulous, and as we discovered when we went out investigating, in a fabulous area which abounds with musical instrument shops, hair dressers, and restaurants. It's off a tiny narrow street (hutong) with metal tracks where the cars ride (I think they are doing work on a subway line underneath the street), and is buzzing with activity. We had dinner in a neat little restaurant just around the corner on the main road for Y42 for both, about $6 or $7, and were in our bed, sweating profusely, despite the A/C by 10:30 p.m.

Sunday June 28 - The Great Wall - Mutianyu

This morning we drove about 2 hours to The Great Wall at Mutianyu. The climb up the steep and long steps to the Wall seemed like the million steps to Heaven. Three quarters of the way up there were speakers playing music. Was this the "Welcome to Heaven" signature tune? Finally, after much huffing and puffing were were once again back up on the Wall and all the splendid views it offers. This section of the Wall was much more modern and fixed up ....and touristy.... probably because we are just outside Beijing. Yesterday it seemed as if we were in the middle of nowhere, except for the vendors at the beginning. Today the vendors were stationd on the Wall and there were tons and tons of tourists, both Asian and Western. We only walked two or three gates, which was easier than yesterday, and then we turned off to take the Toboggen down. This was fun and much easier and quicker than walking! The Toboggen is a little sled which hurtles down the mountain side in a metal shute. You have a leaver in the middle which is both the brake and accelerator - forward for the accelerator, and back for the brake - and your legs go on either side. You lean into the turns like a bike racer. I am very cautious but, still couldn't get much speed out of it; on some of the steeper parts I had the brake on but mostly it was quite mangaeable. A second time down would have been perfect because you would know what to expect and could really let it go. After the Wall, we drove till 12:36; had lunch; then drove for 3 hours to our hotel in Qingdengling, the Qing Feng Hotel, probably the cleanest hotel on the trip. Shortly after we arrived Mike knocked at our door and told us they were going over to the square outside the tombs where they had found a nice spot to sit and have a beer, so we joined them shortly after and enjoyed the sunset, the historic site, the ponies, the goats and the goat herder, and just the ambience it all created. I came back for a shower, then went to dinner in the hotel restaurant with Su Mei and the rest of the group quickly joined us. Dinner was excellent and then it was time for bed.

Saturday June 27 - The Great Wall - Jin Shan Ling to Simatai

We were up early, breakfast, and off in the Truck to The Great Wall. It was about a 2 hour drive from Chengde before we reached the beginning of our 4 hour trek at Jin Shan Ling. We had a short fairly easy climb up to the first Gate (I think its the 12th Gate) on the Wall through the trees and when we got on to the Wall the views were absolutely stunning! The Wall snakes its way along the mountain ridge amongst the lush, treed, conical mountains. This is the Wall of all the pictures you see. It is truly gripping, I just couldn't take my eyes of the views. I wanted each second on the Wall to be 3 times as long. The trek is about 10.5 km and you go up and down the steep, sometimes restored, sometimes unrestored, sections of the Wall for about 25-30 Gates, I lost count! The unrestored, gravel-strewn parts can be quite dangerous and I wouldn't suggest you tackle the wall at this section unless you are fairly fit. The climbs up to each gate were typically around 120 steep stone steps straight up into the heavens, then down 120 steep steps on the other side. It seems to me that you always have to work to see the more amazing feats in the world and this was no exception. The feeling of awe is right up there with Machu Picchu. Others compared it's impact to Petra, and Anchor Wat. A Spanish couple we met told us this is one of the easier sections of the Wall mainly because you walk a little way in between the gates which gives you time to recover. At other parts, construction was in progress and then we had to clamber down off the Wall and walk along the narrow mountain paths beside it. The temperature was about 36C, hazy-sun, and hot, so we were sweating buckets. We had taken a picnic lunch with us and Ray and I stopped to eat it in the shade of one of the Gatehouses. One of the annoyances were the people who tried to follow us along the Wall selling " iced-water, coke, beer"! They literally followed us despite us trying to ignore them, they would tell us to "BE careful!", "Take it slowly", etc. and grab my arm and try to help me up some of the steep parts as I scrambled up the stones and rocks. Eventually, I had a melt-down and Ray gave them Y10 each and told them to leave us alone. It worked. They left us, and then we were all alone with the Wall and its ghosts and memories, apart from the few tourists we met along the way. I have to admit though, the vendors were very fit!! I kept thinking of the Great Wall Marathon and wondered where it was run and if it would be as hard as the trek! At the end we crossed a hanging bridge over a beautiful green Lake, took a last steep climb half way up to the next Gate and turned off to the car park at Simatai to meet the Truck. We had a well earned beer in the restaurant before driving in the Truck to Huariou and the Demyeng Seong Holiday Hotel. Probably had/would be a nice hotel;, but definitely felt like a mauseleum - there was just no-one there. Then we discovered the restaurant was closed! So we ended up getting a cab down to the local village and eating street food. A lot of meat, the vegetables came too late! Then it was back to the hotel in a cab and bed.

Friday June 26 - Chengde - Free Time!

Today was free to do as we wished, so we were up at 8:00 am and off down to KFC for breakfast - a bacon and egg crispy sesame bun and coffee and tea! After that we strolled back along the street looking for a hairdresser's. We found one, in a back street and much to the amusement of the hairdressers went in. Ray wanted a hair cut, and I, bravely, wanted to have my hair coloured and cut. So, without the ability of any Chinese or English, we managed it. There must have been about 15 people around us in the shop, all helping us explain what it was we wanted. Ray's was quite easy. Mine was a little harder. I wanted a cut, an overall colour, and highlights. I walked up to their storage cupboards, opened them, and looked around until I found a tube of colour! Then the light went on, and one of the girls brought a colour chart. We picked out two colours, then I had to try and explain that I wanted an overall colour with the darker one, and highlights with the lighter one. A hoot!! Great laughs all around. But I have been reasonably successful. My hair is a little darker than I would have chosen, but with my tan, it doesn't look too bad; and the highlights are not as light or as many as I would have done at home. The "cut" has a slight "Chinese" flair, a little wispy, not too much though. But its OK. Ray is still happy to have me along side him; and Rachel, who just sat down beside me still recognized me! So, no doubt the colour will wash out fairly quickly. We paid Y210 for both; about $25/30! At home in Canada I would pay at least $150 to have it done. After that we came to the Internet, and finally, I have been able to catch up with my blog. Still no pictures. If you can believe it, there must be about 200 computers in the room and they don't have one that reads a DVD - which is where our pictures are. In the alternative, I can access my camera pictures, 1300 on one flash card, but the pics are so small I can't really make them out and am too nervous to leave the camera hooked up for too long in case anything happens to the flash card! Such has been our problem all along. We are hoping that when we get to Beijing, we will be able to find somewhere that reads DVDs. This evening we are going for a beer in the square, then to dinner. Hopefully, it will be an early night. The last two were a little late! Tomorrow we leave Chengde for Huairou and a 4 hour hike on The Great Wall. We have seen it already in the distance, and it looks just like all the photos you see. I can't wait to do the hike, hot as it might be! The temperature is around 35C. The following day we drive to Qingdongling and then on the 29th into Beijing. Our next tour starts on the 4th and we leave Beijing on the morning of the 7th July. Doubt we will have any acess to Internet while on the 21 day train trip. Then we are home on July 29!! Looking forward to seeing you again then. It has been a long, but mind-stretching time!!

Thursday June 25 - Bishu Shanzhuang - Chengde

We had a lovely lazy morning before hitting the streets for brunch. Then it was off to visit Bishu Shanzhuang, litterally a 10 minute walk from the hotel. Bishu Shanzhuang is the summer resort of the Qing emperors. It was started in 1703 by Emperor Kangxi as a hunting lodge and gradually grew into a summer palace. It used to take 7 days to get here from Beijing and the Emperor would bring 10,000 people with him. The palace was eventually abandoned in 1820 after Emperor Jiaqing died there - supposedly struck by lightening. You enter the main gate and then go through a series of 9 pine-treed courtyards containing 5 halls. The wings on either side of the halls contain various exhibits such as pottery from the Ming Dynasty - fantastic; clocks - a really interesting collection of old Chinese and Europpean clocks; and glass ware. The halls include the Emperor's Study, and the living quarters, poetically called the Hall of Refreshing Mists and Waves. One part of this latter hall is the emperor's bedroom. On either side is the Pine Crane Palace for the empress dowager and on the other the apartments where the concubines lived. Then when you walk through that you enter a huge parkland containing gardens, a deer forest where the deer are so tame they pose for you to take their pictures and will allow you to go up to them and almost touch them; a lake, various temples, pagodas, all surrounded by a 10 km long wall. There were some pretty sites, but time has taken its toll on the buildings and the maintenance of the park. Nonetheless, if you stretch your imagination back in time, it would have been absolutely magnificent. When we finished there Ray came back for a nap and I went to the Internet for an hour, unfortunately mistaking the time because I actually had 2 hours not one!! On our way back a truck working at a roadworks site suddenly lurchd in front of us into a big hole in the road and almost toppled over, coming to rest with its hind left wheel up to the axle in the hole. I thought it was going to topple over, but it didn't although the two outer wheels on the opposite side were off the road. The workers quickly emptied all the earth out of the Truck and we didn't wait around to see what happened then! But it wasn't there next time we looked. We had a group dinner at 7:00 p.m. and went for a "steamboat". This is the Chinese equivalent of a "fondue". You have a propane fired burner in the middle of the table containing two types of "soup", one spicey hot, and one spicey cool. Then you choose dishes of food such as beef, lamb, vegetables, prawns, chipalatta sauceages, spam, mushrooms, etc. and they are cooked in the sauce as you sit around and chat. I can't say it was my favorite meal, but no doubt if I had had the opportunity to choose my own dishes to put in the soup, I would have chosen differently and would probably have enjoyed it a lot more. Nonetheless, the concept is terrific. After dinner we strolled back as a group and ended up in a KTV place (karaoke). What a dump - I haven't been in anything like it for a long time! Nothing like the one we were in in Lanzhou. It was all private rooms, filled with drunken Chinese (oops and westerners!), consuming vast quantities of liquor, and supposedly singing along to knock off hit songs. The atmosphere was rank with the smell of cigarette smoke, and the bathroom was putrid - so much so I walked in, then walked out again. I saw all the rooms when I went in search of a bottle of water. What chaos some of them were in! It was an "eye-opening" experience, and not one we needed to participate in, so after a beer, we left and walked back to the hotel ...and bed.