We Travel World

Its my last day in Beijing today, with my bus to Datong (don worry, nobody has ever heard of it, not even Chinese people) booked for tomorrow afternoon. So what, you ask, have I done in this, the city every Westerner Ive met has raved about??

A lot less than I was supposed to do. My original plan was to spend four days here, with eight places to visit. I made it to round about three of them. Although, unlike normal, the reason for my missing stuff was entirely out of my control. Its the 60th Anniversary of the PRC (when China went all Red) on 1st October. So, Tiannemen Square, and the Forbidden City have been shut for most of the time Ive been here. So I haven been there.

First day I arrived, after my amazing sleeper train from Nanjing, it was about 30 degrees, and really nice blue skies. I thought this was the anti-pollution from the Olympics, when the Chinese government sent a big hoover into the sky. It was a one off, all the other days have been as polluted as any other big city. I tried to find the 789 District, which has tons of art galleries. I forgot my map, i think because I was tired (even after three “black coffees, with milk”) and ended up getting the metro there, walking around some random part of Beijing for the best part of two hours and then getting the metro home again. I did see some Chinese soldiers, in formation walking down the street, as though they should be marching, but more just strolling along in lines. Chinese soldiers are shit at marching.

That night, I went out with some people from my hostel, and went to the main bar area. Met some boys from Derby, who were probably the funniest boys Ive ever met in my entire life, their humour helped by their crazy accents. We played rock,paper,scissors to decide who bought the drinks, and it turns out, I am good at this game. None of that new-fangled, too-complicated,full poster of rules drinking games for me: rockpaperscissors is where its at! On the way home,we got our pictures taken wearing army jackets with some soldiers because we found a cafe full of them in various states of dissarray, too drunk to even stand. Bless. I got told off by a Canadian boy because I thought it was okay to try and hitch a lift with a van-full of drunk Chinese men, with blacked out windows. Whatever. Got in around 8am and fell down some steps. Really hurt my finger, but nothing else. Odd.

Was too hungover to move the next day so spent it in bed and in the bathroom being sick. Lovely. My over-indulgence was justly punished though, because that night, all the people Id been hanging out with went out to Babyface (some Chinese chain nightclub) and had the most amazing night.

As Id had an early night the night before, I got up early (11am) and went to The World theme park. I based my entire application to the Summer School on this film and its director, so I really wanted to go see it. Unfortunately, I think The World had its hey-day about ten years previous, and it was a bit of a dump. The premise is that all the great monuments and landmarks of the world are all together, in 1:10 ratio, all set out in the same sort of order as a world map. (A Chinese world map, with China in the middle, which is silly, everyone knows the UK should be in the middle) It had, all the major ones, such as pyramids, stonehenge (that and London bridge were the only ones from England, poor effort), the White House, lots of things from Italy, Sydney Opera House etc. My personal favourite was seeing the twin towers still standing. Should they be taken down? I think so, its not very accurate, and someone might try to fly a model airplane into them.
Unfortunately, the place was kind of deserted, and there were a lot of bugs and cobwebs everywhere once you strayed from the trail. There was a small section devoted to Africa, which, featured a traditional African village. This was hilarious and had some black people dancing in tiger-print caveman clothes and playing bongos. The Chinese people loved it (Im guessing they think this is really how Africa is) and wanted their picture taken with the exotic black people. The Africans clearly thought the Chinese were retarded and were playing up to their roles and laughing at them. The black lady dancers looked bored to f*ck, but it was fun to watch, and even funnier when the Chinese people wanted their picture taken with the “savages.” It made me laugh because if their was anything resembling this in Britain, there would be uproar, but here, it was totally fine. An Italian/Spanish couple Id seen around the park were a little baffled by this like me, and just seemed confused.
There was also a miniture farm near the African village which had goats and sheep who looked like mangy little things, and one of the deer had a broken foot (hoof??) but nobody had done anything about it. That made me sad because I love farm animals, and the goats were looking at me like they wanted me to save them from their life. But where would I put three goats? My backpacks big, but not that big. If it had been, I would have stolen them. And fed them polos and t-shirts, and other things goats like to eat. After walking around for a little longer, and seeing a camel (I don think camels can be mistreated, they always seem fine) I stumbled upon a circus/animal show. It had crocodiles where a boy put his head between their jaws and hit them on the nose. Their jaws stayed in place after hed taken his head out, so I think they were either drugged, or had some sort of wedge in their throat. They seemed awfully chilled. It was not very Steve Irwin, at all. Then three elephants came out, and did a little dance. Although I do love to see animals do tricks and things that animals don usually do (elephants playing football anyone??) But one of the horrible little Chinese trainer boys obviously couldn control his elephant, and he kept hitting it really hard on the legs, and pulling it behind the ear with a metal spike. I was appalled (and I don usually care about animals, but elephants are like really big, grey people, I think) and was more appalled at how much the Chinese people loved it, and seemed oblivious to the mistreatment. I looked around, and thought I saw a woman who hated it as much as me, with her hands over her mouth, but then she burst into raptuous applause, so I guess I misjudged that one. I left before the end because the elephants started honking (what is it called when elephants make noise? my brain is dead.) and I thought they were going to revolt and trample us all to death. Im glad they never, but if they had, I wouldn have really minded, they kind of deserved their revenge. I kind of thought the elephants were making eye contact with me, to try to save them as well (as a responsible white person? I have no idea how elephants minds work), but my backpack is *definitely* not that big. So I guess Im not going to be going to that Chinese zoo where you fish for tigers with chickens, revolting tigers would do much more harm than revolting elephants, I think. The bus ride home was cool, and I saw tons of Beijing, The World is just on the outskirts, and it took over an hour and a half to get back (for 10p) I saw tons of the city, but its kind of all the same, blocks of flats, fruit shops and stalls selling duck gizzard.

On the way home, I went (for possibly the first time ever in China) to a Lonely Planet recomended Muslim food restaurant (the best food in China is Muslim Chinese food). Although I was trying to find somewhere else, nowhere nearby looked good, and I thought I might as well. It didn have too many white people in, but the food was poor compared to the other Muslim food Ive had in other cities. The chicken wings came with a pile of sweet, peppery, fennel-y spice that you dipped them in, but generally shit. And very expensive. But their was a lady doing bellydancing and what I assumed to be Muslim singing on the stage. But for the final two songs, the band sung a Juanes (La Camisa Negra) and a Marc Anthony (Tu Amor Me Hace Bien) song, so maybe they were slightly less authentic than they looked.

That night, I made it out with some people from the hostel again, and we went back to Babyface. Everyone had built this place up so much that I was geared up for a really amazing night, with dancing, free entry, free drinks and an overall good time. Unfortunately because it was the weekend, we had to pay to get in, there was no free drinks (apparently there never was at Babyface, which begs the question, why are people still going there?) and the dancefloor was full of people. I need space when I dance, or I take people out, so I danced very little. My Swedish friends met the manager, who gave them his metal business card. (!) Business cards are a big deal here, and even poor people have them, they indicate status, so Im guessing with his metal, gold coloured card, he was pretty important. Boring though. Generally the night was shit, and the highlight was when I danced with some small Russian girls who looked like Russian dolls because they were all very similar but slightly differing in height. Home by 3am.

The next day I hung out with the two Swedish girls and an Israeli boy, who was not at all cool like the Israeli boy in Shanghai. I like Swedish people though, theye funny. He wouldn buy a genuine Lonely Planet because he didn agree with them discussing politics and their political opinion on the Israeli-Gaza situation in their book. Me and the Swedish girls clearly thought he was an idiot, and tried to tell him so, but he wouldn listen. We were all giving each other little sly looks, because we all thought the same thing, and he had no idea how stupid he sounded. He had a beard, I don know why, all the Israeli boys who go travelling have beards. It makes them look very Arab, and almost as similar looking as Chinese people. Since Ive been here a while, I don think Chinese people look the same, at all. Although occassionally, I will start a conversation with someone who isn who I think it is because they look similar to my friend, or have similar clothes.

The next day was my last full day in Beijing because everyone was being thrown out of the hostel by the Chinese government. The hostel was within a danger-zone near the Forbidden City, and the government didn want any un-vetted foreigners staying within that distance. So wed been given 36 hours notice to clear out, or else, in typical charming Chinese bureaucratic style. I was losing interest in Beijing quite quickly, so it just made my mind up that i would get outta town sooner rather than later. As it was my last full day, I made an effort to get up early (12pm) and go the Great Wall, like a good tourist would. I made it there by about 3pm because its much further than I imagined. Id decided to go to the less visited part (out of four areas, mine was the second easiest to walk, and the second most visited, so not too touristy but also not too hard. I dislike effort.) and had to get a taxi from the bus stop for the final half hour. Usually there would have been a mini-bus, but I was very late, usually people like to do the Wall in the morning. I demostrated my mega-bargaining skills by getting the driver down from 100Y to….100Y. But I wanted to get something done, and so I didn care.

The wall is really fucking huge, and I would recommend visiting, but I would not recomend visiting in flip flops.(Louisa!) I thought it was a small wall, that probably had a staircase and a handrail that I could hold onto. No. I didn realise that people could fit on the wall, never mind as many people as could possibly. Id never even seen a picture of the wall, so I was totally taken aback. (And the mini version at the theme park did little to make me realise the magnitude either) It was really peaceful compared to all the big cities Id been to, and nice to be able to take full, clean breaths again. My lungs are being destoyed by China. Anyway, I got the cable car up to the wall from the bottom of the hill. The cable car seemed pretty old, and it was really scary cos I hate heights and there was a lot of windows. The only thing that kept me going was the picture of Bill Clinton in the cable car that Id seen at the entrance. If Good Ol BIll can do it, so can I.

I made it up, just, and then realised how stupid Id been for not wearing my trainers. Although, I couldn have worn my trainers even if Id wanted to, because Id given my socks away by that point. I walked up the first section and actually considered going back and just getting the cable car back down. It was pretty much deserted (except for one Chinese family who were miles away, but still ruined most of my photos) so I decided to keep going for a little while, cos Id told the taxi driver to wait for me until six anyway. I managed to walk up the steps for about 20 minutes in my flip flops before succumbing, and just walking the wall barefoot. The few Chinese people I met along the way looked at me like I was insane, but personally, I think the Chinese girls walking the wall in four inch heels are definitely more certifiable than I am! There were 10 towers all in all, and I made 8 of them before I gave in and took the staircase down to the bottom of the hill. The stairs were a bit scarier than the wall because they were just steps in the middle of a mountain, with no rail or any way to stop yourself toppling over into the abyss. My balance, as we know, is pretty lacking, and I nearly went flying at several points, but just about made it to the bottom. I also thought it best to start walking down the steps when I saw them, because the Wall was so deserted. I kept having visions of having to spend the night on the Wall (it was getting on for 6pm at this point, when the wall officially closes) and dying of hypothermia because I hadn had any breakfast, and wasn made of sterner stuff, like the Chinese are.

That night, a few people went out (to Babyface, again. Really people, branch out!) but I stayed home because I had to leave in the morning and still hadn packed. I played pool with some French boys. Apparently in France, if you buy a fake handbag/clothes on holiday and the authorites find them, you have to pay the government, twice the price of the original!! I suppose its because lots of designers are French, but I wouldn even know if a bag I had was a knock-off, just if it was nice, which seems unfair. Maybe French people have inbuilt designer wear radars. Silly French government. I lost at pool, and also noticed that on the walls (they encouraged grafitti at this hostel, for character value, I assume) someone had written “I Hate Hull KR”, which made me laugh a lot because Hull KR should be the last thing from your mind when youe over 5000 miles away in Beijing. Aren Hull FC fans twats??

So here I am this morning, waiting for my train to Datong, where I arrive at 10pm, and the next day will see some caves. Im losing my patience a bit with China. Im considering cutting my trip short and getting my arse in gear and over to Thailand, but Ill wait and see how Xian is. Thats where Im going after Datong, its where the Terracotta Warriors are, and is further South, so nearer to Thailand than I am now, which isn hard.