Beijing and finishing up China

We expected Beijing to be crowded and polluted, but surprisingly we found neither to be entirely true.  Perhaps the rain we received cleared the air, but throughout the week we also got some beautiful blue skies, and apart from the tourist spots, Beijing was not as crowded as we had feared and was well laid out for such a large city.

Our hotel room was facing in-ward towards the atrium so unfortunately we didn’t know the sky was falling until we got outside on our first day and we hadn’t dressed for it. We first visited Tiananmen Square, which was pretty much just a big rectangle and unfortunately the rain and thousands of tourists with umbrellas didn’t really do it for us. We headed into the Forbidden City Palace, which was certainly larger than we expected and in amazing condition after the renovations for the Olympics. It is called the Forbidden City because no common people were allowed inside during the emperors rule.  We’d like to tell you more of the Palace, but to be honest, there was so much and the rain really took way from it. Nonetheless, it certainly was impressive.

The next morning we drove about an hour and a half to visit a section of the Great Wall!  It was built by the first emperor of China who also built the terracotta warriors.  We marveled again at his amazing vision and ambitions.  We were overwhelmed by the number of tourists visiting, but we took the route with less people, even though it was very steep. There were mountains all around, and even though the day was hazy, it was beautiful and much cooler than it would have been with the sun blazing.  The wall was remarkable and unbelievably steep at times. We both really enjoyed the hour or so that we walked along the way and it was probably the highlight of Beijing.

Around the corner from our hotel was a snack market and a bizarre that lived up to all our expectations of Chinese markets!   We saw snakes and starfish on sticks as well as LIVE scorpions on sticks as well as many other things that scared the shit out of us.  We were not brave enough to try the more shocking items, but we did sample a few tamer snacks like pot stickers and balls of fried banana.  We also put our crazy bargaining skills to use in the market and picked up some gifts. Our bags are getting really heavy now!  I think it’s time to throw out some clothes to make room for souvenirs!

Other tourist attractions we visited were the Tombs of the Emperors and the Summer Palace. The 14 tombs were built very deep underground with Feng Shui in mind.  It was an impressive engineering project especially considering when they were built.  Only one has been open to the public and the others are still closed.  The Summer Palace was built on a lake and “palace” does not really describe it accurately; as with most Chinese architecture, it was more about the grounds than the buildings.  There were some pretty elements to it, but once again, the overwhelming number of tourists really just left me wanting to run away.

One of our favorite things about China was all the public Parks.  In every city there were beautiful parks and the people certainly take advantage of them, retired people in particular.  All throughout the day people come together in big and small groups to dance, practice Tai Chi, sing, play cards and Chinese chess, fly kites, dance with ribbons and more.  We also saw a lot of very talented Calligraphers writing and drawing on the pavement with large water brushes.  As we were walking by, one artist looked up at Raj and decided to draw him!  In about 90 seconds, he drew a fantastic image of Raj (see video).  Overall, walking through the parks was a great way to see how the people relax and enjoy life, how artistic and vibrate they are. and how content, and social Chinese people are. What we saw in the parks/public areas seemed unique to China and not something we would expect to see anywhere else in the world.

For about a month we have been discussing the last few weeks of our trip which originally included a week in Japan and a week in Thailand before finishing up in London.  Between the riots in Thailand and the feeling that a week was not sufficient for Japan, we decided to change up our trip a bit.   After considering spending the two weeks in only Japan or going to Cambodia, Vietnam, Egypt, Mongolia South Africa or Morocco, we finally decided on skipping Japan for this trip and instead going to Vietnam  and Cambodia with only 2 days in Bangkok (which we had to keep in order to get our international flight to London because our OneWorld pass didn’t fly to London from many of the places were considering.  After some research into visas for Vietnam and Cambodia we found we could get our Vietnam visa in Beijing and our Cambodian visa upon arrival.  However, in Beijing we were confronted with some ridiculous complications.  First of all, if we were going to be flying to Vietnam from any other country, we could have just applied for a visa upon arrival, but China does not allow passengers to board a flight without a visa in hand.  So, we had to surrender our passports to the Vietnam embassy for them to process our visas, but doing that meant that we couldn’t travel or check in to new hotels because they are very strict in China about having a passport at check-in and a photocopy would not suffice.  So, we not only had to pay extra for rush delivery for our visas, but we had to cancel our overnight trip from Beijing to Datong which included seeing a hanging monastery and an overnight train journey back to Beijing.  Despite our frustration, our travel agency was super nice and took on the expense of re-booking our Beijing hotel at no additional cost to us, and in the end we left China with our Vietnam visas and great anticipation for visiting Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and a four night stay at the beach in Mui Ne, Vietnam!.

Travelling Thoughts

I think it is widely accepted that international travel, especially for an extended period of time, has the tendency to change people, even if in only small ways.  Obviously, one of the reasons for this is that you witness the way other people live and have the opportunity to compare many differences in lifestyle to your own.  Intrinsic to this comparison, is a greater appreciation for many of the comforts of home.  While I have undoubtedly gained a deeper understanding, appreciation and respect for the Chinese culture, travelling for an extended period of time in this Asian society has made me miss and appreciate some things from home more than others.

Apart from the obvious things like missing my dogs (and I could go on and on about the specific things I miss about each one of them, but i will spare you this whining and instead discuss at length with Raj), and chatting with my mom and dad without worrying about the connection, and working out with Amber, and being able to call my grandparents without worrying about the time difference, and my bed and pillows… you know – all the things anyone misses, here are some of the specific things that I’ve been thinking about:

• I miss Western etiquette.  This one is tricky to discuss because I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like diversity or appreciate different cultures, but certain things must be stated:  when a plane lands, it won’t kill you to let people file out of the plane according to where they sit- pushing your way to the front will really not save you that much time, especially when nearly everyone else is doing the same thing.  Also, and this one is the worst, Chinese people tend to clear the phlegm from their throats and spit it out anywhere and everywhere and it is simply disgusting.
• I miss and appreciate non-smoking restaurants and hotel rooms.  Our favorite moment illustrating this was our first hotel in China where we had booked a non-smoking room. When we entered the room, it smelled a bit funny – not really smoky but more like how it would smell if they were covering it up.  Then we noticed there were two ashtrays in the room, so we called the front desk and said we had requested a nonsmoking room and the response was that we did have a nonsmoking room  We replied that there were ashtrays in the room and there was a bit of a language barrier but their response was that if we wanted ashtrays (in our nonsmoking room) all we had to do was call housekeeping.  (sigh)
• I miss shopping and cooking for myself. I miss salads and hummus and veggie burgers. I miss Trader Joe’s and Costco.
• I miss Sunday brunch with the Ramga’s after a Saturday night shaking our booties.
• I appreciate Western toilets and their being toilet paper in stalls.  Although I’ve gotten rather good at squatting and quickly learned to always carry my own toilet paper, I must say that after a week in Tibet, I will even appreciate dirty gas station bathrooms in the future.
• I miss being able to dress up – at this point I always feel grubby in my travel clothes – really looking forward to shopping in London – like as soon as we get off the plane!
• I miss and appreciate having my own washing machine!  It’s bad enough having to wear the same clothes over and over again, but either washing them in hotel sinks or finding a laundry mat that seems to always get the stink out but also adds stains is getting really old.  Other than my bathing suit and sundress, I don’t expect to keep one article of clothing that I brought with me.
• I miss driving and understanding the rules of the road.
• I miss being able to listen to music and sing along – always using headphones with iPod sort of prevents this.
• I appreciate free press – the news and information in general is censored in China and it’s very frustrating when you know its happening.

Despite these things, with only 3 weeks left of our trip, I feel a renewed sense of adventure and excitement over our trip. I don’t feel as homesick as I had been feeling for a few weeks and am finding it easier to live in the moment. ironically, Raj seems to being feeling homesick for the first time, which actually just makes me happy because I finally know that we feel the same way and are in it together.  We are heading to a beach in Vietnam which makes it feel more like a relaxing vacation and I am super excited to veg-out, read my book and get a tan!  A couple days of down time will be great to make sure we are re-charged for Cambodia, Thailand, London and of course, for coming home! 

Xi’an and Warriors

We had a very short trip in Xian – only 2 nights.  Again, we noticed immediately how much easier breathing was at a normal altitude.  The city of Xi’an was very nice and pretty.  The downtown area is protected by a huge wall which used to be the palace’s borders.  Today, the wall is used for marathons and the entire wall has parks on the outside which the people use well.

The main attraction in Xi’an is the Terracotta Warriors and they are absolutely fascinating. There are an estimated 8,000+ life-size and extremely detailed warriors and another 130 chariots and 700 horses.  Their faces have intricate expressions and the army is situated according to rank, just as it would have been in 246 BCE.   They were built by the first emperor of China – the one that unified all the different dynasties and also built the Great Wall. According to our guide, the emperor built the warriors to protect him in the afterlife. Amazingly, he ordered construction of the army when he was only 13 years old and before he was actually emperor.  After being discovered by a farmer trying to build a well in 1973, hundreds of archaeologists have worked on excavating the army and putting the pieces back together (most were destroyed in a fire and the original weapons were robbed shortly after completion).  They found that the vibrant colors faded completely within 6 months so they halted further excavation.  As of today, they still don’t have the technology to properly preserve the pieces (although we heard on the news a few hours ago they are going to give it a try).

We also visited a Feng shui museum, yet another buddhist temple and one of the four most famous mosques in China. Also, we went to a Tang Dynasty Cultural show.  We have enjoyed all the shows in China and this one was no exception.  The music was nice, costumes were beautiful and there was dancing as well as kung fu elements. It was very entertaining!

The first night at the Hyatt we discovered they had a pub with Pizza so of course we decided to take advantage of the opportunity for a pizza and beer night.  But, we also had the benefit of a live Philippino cover band. As we had more beers the band sounded better. Anyway because we were 2 of 6 people in the bar, the band came over to say hi and chat a little. They were actually really nice and took some requests.  The next and final night we decided to pay them a visit again, however we felt we needed to step it with Martini’s so Raj taught the bartender how to make a dirty martini and we even ended up on stage with the band. We bought the band a few rounds of beer, again because we were 2 of 4 people in the bar and chatted with them during their break. Some of the band members had these really cool cigarette holders with a built in lighter. Anyway we thought they’d be great gifts and when we asked them were to buy them the band members gave us two as a gift. Very sweet of them! Unfortunately at the airport the next day, the airport told us we could not fly with them, even if they were in checked in baggage, so we had to leave them with our guide as gift for her. Very sad... (sorry Fred).

Xi’an was surprisingly fun, and truly a beautiful city in the middle of China with a rich and loooong history like no other – 5000 years.   As we’ve heard from just about every guide, “if you want 50 years of China’s history, go to Shanghai; if you want 500 years of China’s history, go to Beijing; and if you want 5000 years of history, go to Xi’an!”