Following my hostels advice I got the shuttle not the express train into Beijing central. They recommended getting a taxi at Xidan station from there. However, getting a taxi at 6pm rush hour taxi along Beijing’s main boulevard was a fruitless exercise.... all taxis taken. After 15 minutes I gave in and took a ride (well it would be fairer to say he took me for a ride!) with an old man on a converted motor cycle with back seat room for 2 (or one person and a pack). And so we started blasting through busy Beijing traffic on this rickety thing... ah Asia gotta love it; made it there eventually. Luckily I had the hotel and street name in Asian characters as this guy spoke no English and I spoke no Mandarin. I weakly bartered price via his cell phone keypad.
The next day was spent exploring the Forbidden City; its new naming of "old palace museum" is naff and loses the mystique. The place was mind boggling. I was having flash backs to watching The Last Emperor with my parents as a kid, which I must rewatch sometime. The place had loads of tourists, at least 95% of whom would have been Chinese people visiting their capital. The old palace museum is so big it easily swallowed them up even allowing some quiet moments. I then went to the adjoining Tiananmen square. No tanks there today unfortunately but plenty of soldiers!
A 5:45 am departure the next day to get on a small tour to go to the Great Wall at Jinshanlang. Taking lonely planet advice was worth it and so was the 3 hour one way drive. opposed to the much closer Baddaling great wall this was much quieter, with whole sections of wall to oneself. I can confirm it is a big wall. I spent 3-4 hours across it after taking a cable car to it. Hawkers at each watch tower were only happy to relieve me of yuan for food and water. The wall here was a combination of modern rebuilt wall and original Ming dynasty wall (14th century) in great condition. On the drive back I could see totally dilapidated wall grown over with trees. Overall pretty damn cool
The next day took the subway to the outskirts of Beijing and visited the Emperors Summer Palace. One could imagine the Forbidden City might be a but hit in summer so here is where empress CiXi and emperor Qianlong would hang out in summer. Surrounded by lakes, Ming architecture (which I think I now recognise) forests and gardens; again not bad diggs! I also encountered a strange thing where random Chinese girl tourists wanted to have their photo taken with me (this happened quite a few times on the trip). I guess Asian girls like my style ( :p :D ) .
The following day I started at the temple of heaven (where the emperor would one to pray for a good harvest), up to the lama temple (the biggest Bhuddist temple in china outside Tibet), i then wandered through some Beijing back alleys (hutong) and really started to get a feel for the inner old city. I emerge from these at the drum tower where by some coincidence I saw a performance on ancient drums. I then did some more rambling, turned a corner and boom a pretty lake emerged infront of me. An idyllic scene of a willow surrounded lake, old men playing Mah Jong, couples holding hands, families walking, wedding photos, very tranquil. So I just sat, shoes off and relaxed for a bit. Turnsout this was the famous Shishahai lake. My rambling path then took me to Jinshang park ... To a pagoda with glorious views over all of Beijing and the forbidden city. And then back to the hostel for chinese food and a well earned beer after many many miles of walking.
Please forgive the stream of consciousness prose... I decided to read james joyce's Ulysses this trip... Not the easiest read I am finding!
For my final day in Beijing I decided to change it up and see the newest part of Beijing; the Olympic village. Again very grandiose; I begin to notice the Chinese have a thing for doing things big! I went via the old city walls back to my hostel, had some dinner, backpack on as I negotiated Beijing public transport to get to Beijings freaking enormous west train station. Actually, Beijing’s transport system is very efficient and totally cheap once you work out what the hell is going on. Any fears I had about having a very uncomfortable overnight train trip travelling "soft seat " to Xian were quickly diminished. Much more spacious than an airplane and frankly puts British Rail to shame. A non-stop direct overnight train; sweet , there goes 1200 km !
Straight onto another bus and boom straight to next hostel, luckily I could check in at 9:30 am, since the previous occupants had left early. Sweet, still dealing slightly dazed from partially sleeping slumped over the dinner tray on the seat infront of me I had a quick spell in full horizontal position, showered then back onto more buses to head just out of Xi'an to go see the Terracotta armies. It was during this visit I realised a) my camera is crap b) I am a crap photographer and c) neither of the above really bother me J. I also realise that any photos I take of the places I visit on this holiday won’t even get close to doing them justice. Yes that was a lot of warriors... Phillips would have been in adolescent fantasy army paradise with all manner of archers, crossbow men, charioteers, warriors, Generals weapons etc... Some 6000 they say. What struck me about it was that it is very much (36 years after discovery) still an archaeological work in progress such is the scale of it. Back in Xi’an I decided to walk the city (Ming) walls; now these things were suprisingly impressive; I forget the precise measurements but they must have been 15 m wide, 15 m high stone running 14 km around the old city with interspersed gates and towers. Given the 35 degree sun had begun to set I hired a rickety old cycle and cycled atop the Walls for an hour. A good way to see the city humming away from on high! Got some food, and had a beer with a german backpacker named Robert then to sleep
Got up at 6:45 for the trip to Mt Hua Shan , one of china's sacred mountains. Today was a day of confusion as the tour group I joined up with was all asian bar one Danish guy and the chinese guide spoke little english bar a few words ... It was along trip out there some 2-3 hours one way. Along the way saw a nasty truck accident and a massive traffic jam stretching 10 km. What was striking was the traffic was going nowhere and 95 % of the vehicles were trucks carrying coal. I hoped that a similar jam didn’t await us on our return. how little I knew! Anyway we arrived at Hua Shan and it's sheer granite cliffs were truly amazing. A ridiculously steep cable car took one up... that it was of Austrian construction gave me confidence it was probably safe. Spent a great 3-4 hours walking the ridges and peaks in the spectacular scenery while chatting to the Danish guy about Chinese culture (his wife was Chinese and he was interesting to talk too). Anyway we got back on time for our proposed departure time of 5:30 but we weren't going to leave. Eventually at 6:30 two Chinese ladies from our group came back and we were to leave. But worse was to come. About an hour in we hit a traffic jam on an "A" Style road and we went nowhere for the next 2 hours. The cause of the traffic jam was nothing but lack of good sense, as side of the road was abandoned and traffic got jammed each way. Chinese driving is really not good! I was not to get back to my hostel till midnight some 4 hours late, hungry and exhausted. Had some food then a beer with Robert and some ex pat guys (English teachers) in the bar.. I recounted my tale to them and they nodded knowingly. Apparently, the kind of stupidity I witnessed on the road today is all too common in china!
The Next morning I went out to another emperors tomb outside of Xi'an- that of Emperor Cheng-De. It was not as grandiose as the terracotta warriors but then most of it has not been excavated yet so who knows what will turn up there. And that’s the thing; these tombs where emperors took their belongings to the afterlife with them were buried deep underground and only discovered by chance. There are probably many more located around Xi'an yet to be found! In the afternoon went to Xi'an's famous landmark the big goose pagoda. The evening was pizza, beer and a chocolate sundae in the hostel. As I did not know when my next good meal would be I made the most of comfort food (and I was right to do so).
Got up at 5am the next morning and got a 1 hr flight to Xining; the town where I would get my Train to Lhasa the capital of Tibet. Xining seemed a lot less developed than the eastern Chinese cities I had seen. It was immediately noticeable that there were more ethnicities here in addition to Chinese. I could not yet recognise who was what but they were probably, Tibetans and Uighurs. My taxi driaver dropped me off, pointed to a city block and I was left trying to work out where the office was from which I was meant to get my train tickets. Thankfully, as things were looking a bit grim a Muslim lady asked me in almost perfect english "excuse me, do you need help?" ... I sure do! She then took me to where I needed to go ...the 14th floor of a random building. I got my ticket, my government Tibetan Travel Permit and then went to the train station where I had 4 hours to kill. Having seen the train stations in Xi'an and Beijing I had assumed there would be somewhere I could eat in the station. Nope, and I hadn't eaten yet; the only food I could identify in the small station kiosk was peanuts in a shell and biscuits, so that was breakfast and lunch! As I sat I received many looks from people and I was clearly the only and rare westerner out here. The Tibetans seemed particularly curious. I sat next to a young Chinese guy with a backpack as I waited and he actually knew enough English to have a reasonable conversation with, although there was much gesturing and pointing to my guide book! After he left a police lady came up to me and took me away. Gulp. After checking my permit and passport I was then taken to a special waiting area. The train itself was pretty nice and I was to spend the next 25 hours on there; very comfortable particularly because I was the only occupant of my 4 sleeper cabin... Yeehah! That night I eventually managed to communicate to the train chef I was a vegetarian he whipped me up some Brocolli and rice but I was in no position to be fussy. The train policeman was quite friendly and tried to engage me in conversation but this was quite unsuccessful as he spoke less English than I spoke Mandarin (~10 words I would say!). By around 8 it was dark and I went to sleep rather early. I had been kind of busy the last few days and I caught up on some much needed sleep.
The Qinghai - Tibet railway is truly impressive at 2000 km long most of it runs at ~ 4000 m altitude topping out at 5070 m! They actually pump Oxygen around the cabins and pressurise it so the non Tibetans don't get altitude sickness. Sections also have cooling pipes installed so the ground doesn't unfreeze in summer. It also proved a great introduction to Tibetan scenery, snow covered flats, grasslands and of course herds of yaks, cattle, Sheep and horses and the odd random Tibetan herding or doing other daily activities. I was met at Lhasa train station by someone from my tour company and taken to my hotel, I was told to just take it easy as the jump to 3700m high Lhasa can be taxing. Which I did, I ate dinner had a little wander about met my guide and a few members of my group. As an aside; I don't normally take tours bur basically in Tibet you have no option, to get into Tibet you need a permit which only an agency can give you, to go to the sites or anywhere outside of Lhasa you need permits guides etc. So my tour group seemed pretty nice all mostly youngish explorer types; a Hungarian guy living in Dublin; an odd polish guy living in Shanghai; A Brit guy living in hong kong; an American who lives in Phnom Penn, a large new yorker and 2 south African girls plus Lhotse out Tibetan tour guide.
On our first morning we visited the rightful residence of his holiness the 14th Dalai lama and the place was breathtaking, lots of little temples and tombs of the old dalai lamas, sitting on a rock outcrop overlooking Lhasa. Lhotse explained much tibetan religion and history to us. In the afternoon we went to Sera monastery the residence of some 470 monks and saw them debating (school for monks). One of the monks (called ching-me sp?) beckoned me to sit with him and we chatted about monk life, my life etc. He was 34, had been in the monastery 14 years and hopes to die there. I presume his body would then be chopped up and fed to the vultures hovering on the mountain above the monastery (sky buriak ala Kundun). Lhotse told us this still happens but only monks (not even family) are allowed to witness it. There were only 470 monks left as the Chinese had removed half of them after the 2008 riots. They even now have policemen living in the monastery... The real highlight of Lhasa is wandering the streets of Barkhor and watching the people. Lhasa is a place of pilgrimage for Tibetans as well as every day life. The people from the ridiculously old to very young walk the streets in such a variety of traditional (and western clothing) and pass you with smiles and greetings, although I think my appearance was something novel and interesting to them. Their fantastic costumes, the amazingly old looking ladies with their waist long braids tied with beads; hordes of children playing in the street; market stalls filled to the brim with produce, yak butter, and all sorts of things I could not identify. I had also noticed the Tibetans are generous people... when a needy person comes to them they don't hesitate to give .... So when a girl in ragged clothes came up to me with her baby on her back I had little choice but to reach into my wallet and give her 5 yuan... (50 p to me but a lot for her). A market stall lady across the way had witnessed this and when I turned around (not knowing I was being watched) she smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up
As for the Chinese, it only takes 24 hours in Lhasa to realise the Tibetans are their own unique culture and people and Chinese imperialism has no place here. The Chinese flag on potala palace and Tiananmen square style scene in front to the boy storm-troopers who patrol the streets in high density are the obvious signs; more subtle is the disempowerment and disposession of these lovely people in their own country. Not cool, these extremely devout people would have the Dalai lama back in an instant as their leader and anything the Chinese government tries to tell you otherwise is balls! Obviously there are many cultures at risk from imperialism on our shitty planet but the warmth, humanity and compassion with which these people treat each other is in sharp contrast to our western lifestyles that it would be a tragedy if it were lost.
The next day in Lhasa we visited Deprung monastery just outside of the city and then in the afternoon the ancient jokhar temple. Jokhar temple is the oldest in Lhasa (Tibet). Both places were again filled with all kinds of frescos, statues.
The next morning we left Lhasa and headed up the "Friendship Highway" by 4 WD. I was sitting in the front seat and could hear our driver chanting most of the way quietly to himself. The road itself was quite magnificent and the first uphill quite hairy as it twisted and cut up a mountain pass - I was certainly glad it was a paved road. We hit a beautiful turqoise mountain lake, then wound our way up past a glacier, eventually reaching a peak altitude of around 5100m ... and I must say I did notice the air was getting a little thin, with a slight tightening of the head, but by the end of the day at Shigatse we had dropped down to around 4000 m and so I felt fine. The mountain scenery was really beautiful and reminded me a lot of home and inspired me to want to do some Himalayan hiking! Even at these tremendously high altitudes there were signs of life, with shepherds and flocks of highland sheep and primitive rock animal pens etc (as well as ever-present hawkers at roadside stops). In Gyantse we visited a great temple complex with a fantastic multiple-storey Stuba which contained over 100,000 paintings or statues of the bhudda! A few more hours drive we were in Shigatse. The scenery was contains in the background , and field after field of harvested barley and scenes of Tibetan agricultural life - far from modern farming and simple villages but certainly a glimpse into the current past !
The next day we started by visiting Tashilimpu monastery in Shigatse, home of the 2nd most important lama; the Panchem Lama. The 11th Panchem Lama doesn't live there anymore as he was kidnapped by the Chinese government as a child and the world has not seen him since; they gave tried to install their own one. Hmmmm. Did you know if a Tibetan has a picture of the Dalai Lama in their house and the Chinese government finds out they will be put in jail? Our drive across the roof the world continued as we made it to Sakya monastery; home of the white hat sect. As I wondered around I found (busted) a group of young monks having a beer in a courtyard.... One of my favorite ways to meditate too..... Overnight in a dusty Tibetan town called Lhatse.
Most of the next day we drove to Everest base camp. It was a long rocky road up to base camp driving through the foothills of the Himalayas, passing through isolated farming communities. At one high pass covered in snow a mandatory snowball fight followed. Base camp was at altitude around 5200 m. Unfortunately though Everest was shrouded in clouds, but such is the way of mountains. That night everyone in our group suffered minor altitude sickness, my symptoms were headache and sleeplessness.
In the morning we warmed ourselves next to the yak dung stove in our tent. Dried Yak dung actually heats up amazingly fast and doesn’t smell! Although it started pretty misty as the morning progressed it burnt off and eventually we had fantastic views of Qomolangma / Everest. Yep that is one pretty big mountain and well worth the visit. Apparently Bhudda had smiled on us because this was the first time in several weeks the mountain had showed itself! We left the mountain on a 4WD track. It was a beautiful scenic trip through the back country and we only for stuck in the mud once. We then hit the main road and stopped in a hovel of a town called Tingri where we had a quick lunch before continuing along "the friendship highway" to Nepal. The highway took us over another high pass and onto a desert like plain but 8000+ m Shishibanga was hiding in the clouds. Then after a while we began a 3000 m descent that lasted for hours. As we descended the landscaped changed as we literally passed through the himalayas to the wet south side (as opposed to the dry Tibetan plateau). We descended through a breathtaking gorge dotted with waterfalls and a mountain river. Again, I was reminded of the south island except the south island is not even close to as vast. Finally, we hit Zhangmu a dodgy feeling border town (aren't all Asian border towns) filled with trucks and traffic jams on a single mountain road and stayed in a very shitty damp hotel.
The next morning we got struck in traffic so we just legged it to the border, did the mandatory official stuff crossed the friendship bridge and we were in a different country, and the difference in everything was immediately noticeable, from people to man-made environment. We then hired a driver (named Karma-sherpa ... I kid you not) who took us as fast as he possibly could to Kathmandu (3 hrs or so) but then we gained 2:15 in time zones (?) when we crossed the border. Kathmandu is a busy bustling dirty alive town nestled in the Kathmandu valley and the tourist area of Thamel is a warren of thin streets that is so very easy to get lost in, which I did several times. It's kind of like Khao-San road in Bangkok, except that the Nepali's don't have the cut throat attitude to tourists that the Thai's do. I also note that nowhere in the world have I been offered hash to buy by so many people on the streets (please note that I declined all such offers!).
My last day I saw the sights of Kathmandu, where they burn the bodies and float the down-river, some temples stupas and monsteries and more of the madness that is Kathmandu. I even got my dreads (Tibetan = relba) on the cheap and had dinner with my tour group friends who were also in Kathmandu. On the plane next morning for the flight home. Everything went fine, except the broken baggage carousel and Ticket machine at Heathrow, how typically British!
