6/5/97

Up early to see the Temple of Heaven, with a small bonus of seeing the Chinese vlasti (Russian word, denoting Party hacks) going to work. A stream of Mercedes with blacked out windows sweep past the hotel around 8-30am, with everyone else rushing out of the way; some things never change it seems! The temple was very picturesque, but as an engineering graduate I have a very unromantic attitude to things like temples; I only find them interesting if I know about the history behind them. The Forbidden City has a well documented history, but the temple's history is largely unknown to me, so I left without feeling anything much.

In the afternoon I went to visit the Monkey Business office; I wanted to see what they were offering so I could learn just how much I had wasted by going from Russia to China instead of the other way round. The answer was an awful lot! The bloke in the office was really friendly, and we had a chat about Mongolia. The grapevine had earlier informed me that you could now get Beijing- Moscow tickets yourself for about $125, but their prices still seemed OK. He also confirmed the welcome news that the Chinese no longer charged foreigners double for all train and bus tickets, but that it still seemed to apply for air tickets. Well, it's not as if I was planning on flying much!

On the way back to the hostel on the bus, I found myself being "molested". The bus was packed, and I found myself standing next to a Chinese girl of about 21. We smiled at each other, and she turned around and gently moved back against me. So far this was just coincidence, but it became obvious that this wasn't the case when she started to rub herself against my crotch. I thought really hard about football and other related matters but I wasn't entirely successful, and she got off at the next stop with a wide grin at me that said very clearly that she knew just what she had been doing! I don't think that this was a come on at all; it's much more likely to just be a bit of curiosity as to how us laowai behave. The answer seems to be just the same as any other male!

After a little dinner with the other backpackers, some of my acquaintances decided to visit the local supermarket about 500m up the road. Much to my surprise, it was still open at 9-30pm, although the Mc D's next door was shut. Outside, a ballroom dancing competition was in progress! A series of couples were waltzing to Stravinsky, and a large crowd were watching. As I stood there and watched, I became aware that the crowd behaved very differently to one in Britain. When the couple dancing twirled you could see- and sense- them all reacting in unison. It happens at home occasionally in places like football grounds, but it was interesting to see it in the street. I decided I'd learnt a little more about China.

7/5/97

Into Beijing for my appointment with the Gong An Ju (PSB) to retrieve my passport, which was handed over with a scowl. I will enjoy breaking into Tibet; it will do much to avenge myself on these little Hitler's. Afterwards I decided to walk to the zoo; apparently there's an Internet cafe nearby and I'd like to send an email to Mom and Pop before I leave Beijing . It's a long walk, and I stumbled into the Muslim quarter by accident on the way. The glare from all the white skull caps was blinding, and you could pick out a lot of more European looking types who were presumably Uighurs. I had heard that a bomb had gone off in Beijing recently which was claimed by an Uighur group, but this lot looked peaceable enough, though not as friendly as the Chinese. After getting to the zoo, I finally found the Internet cafe (Sparkice) just round the corner. At 30Y for an hour, it's OK; you'd never know that China has only one two megabit link to the outside world.

I think I'm becoming addicted to certain Chinese practices; number one on the list would be eating sweet yoghurt from street vendors. The yoghurt itself comes in a little earthenware pot covered by paper held in place by a rubber band; you just poke a straw through the paper and suck it up. Lovely stuff, and I'm having at least four a day! Slices of watermelon on sale in the street go down well too, but you do wish that the Chinese would sell something other than jasmine tasting green tea, usually made by pouring in some hot water with a few leaves thrown on top. Ah well, I'll just have to continue my beer only diet. Another thing about Beijing's people is that half of them seem to carry pagers, all made by my former employers at Motorola; you just can't get away from them, even here.

Went to another small restaurant for dinner, and was slightly surprised to be invited to sit at a table with a middle-aged Chinese couple in rather stilted English. I soon found out that the lady spoke fluent French, and in no time I was sweating as I tried to remember all those verbs again. I think that for someone with a French godmother (well, Swedish, but married to a Frenchman), I did really badly.

8/5/97

I was off the the Great Wall this morning at eight. We were going to a section called Simitai which was rather less overrun by tourists than the others, mainly because it was a lot steeper! It was a three hour ride, but the sight of a wall ascending a knife edged ridge was worth the wait. The climb was about 450m vertically, and at times extremely steep, but when you climb up on top of the guard houses the view seemed to go half way to Mongolia- which was probably the idea! I went up with some Brits and a couple of hardy Americans; well, one was from Alaska and the other was a US Army lieutenant in the making. They were both doing a degree in Mandarin at a Seattle University, and they got credits for spending five months travelling through China- lucky bastards! The latter had had a stroke of luck in getting his scholarship through just after being a grunt had given him a knee injury. On the way back down we stopped at a small cafe, and discussed what we had each seen about China. I'm not going to the south of the country at all unfortunately, but his descriptions of life there made me all the more interested in going there sometime soon.

Resevoir from top of Wall, Simitai	The Wall

9/5/97

This morning was partly dedicated to recovery, then to getting a couple of things i.e. a new pair of trainers. The pair of "long life" Pumas which had managed to wear out in two weeks and give me blisters were thrown in the bin with a lot of venom! Certain parts of life in Beijing are getting me down as well, the number one annoyance being the pedicab cyclers who hawk for custom by shouting "hello" at every Westerner they see. After a long walk through the town during which I had "hello!" shouted at me every ten paces, I was nearly at the stage of turning round and chasing after one; and I don't mean that I was looking for a ride! The buses are very unreliable as well; I get the impression that's why so many of the locals cycle. There are private minibuses around, but thinking that they might be faster would be a mistake. They usually cruise around at 5 km/h while the conductor leans out of the doorway and hawks for custom. In fact, over a 1k stretch, I overtook one minibus twice on foot!

Amongst the good things about China is how cheap the clothes are; I got a jacket for 80Y and a pair of trousers for 50Y. They look like they will fall to bits quickly, but what the hell. Besides, the market is a tremendously friendly place, and I had a great time just going round saying hello.

Tonight I went to the foreigners "going out zone" in the east of Beijing. There's all sorts of "goodies" here ranging from pubs selling cider to a Hard Rock Cafe. It was while I was progressing through the former that I met Tim, an American handyman who was doing a few jobs for his embassy, before moving on to another country. In the last two years he had worked in Uzbekistan, Mongolia and several African countries, all the time living in hotels. Right now he was in another and had an "arrangement" with the two Chinese girls who lived in his hotel room. I wondered whether the PSB had anything to say about that, but he just grinned and said working for the embassy had it's advantages. I became a little less friendly towards him when he kept on referring to his girlfriends as "bitches", but I dare say they weren't forced into the arrangement. It just seems a bit of a sad way to behave, but then again if you put up with him you've got no-one else to blame.

I had dinner at a TGI Friday further east, which was right back up to Western prices, then went to the Hard Rock cafe, which proved to be less of a cafe and more of a nightclub full of middle aged businessmen trying to get laid. It was also 100Y to enter, so I decided to go home, while managing to fend off several Chinese women in tracksuits who wanted to give me a "messagee"!

10/5/97

Today started with an attempt to get a train ticket to Xian. After one and a half hours on the buses to get to the Central train station, I found that I actually needed to go to the Western. This was a surprise to me because my "bible " mentioned nothing about this; the station had only been built a year ago! The new station was a massive structure, still not quite finished, which was rather hard to find your way around, despite signs in English! Following one of these, I went down to the basement to get a ticket and asked for a hard sleeper, partly through some Chinese girls who corrected my pronunciation. Unfortunately, no-one would give me one, and they kept pointing upstairs; going back up I saw a sign for the "foreigners and compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan" ticket office, where I was a little more successful. After that palaver, it was 2-30pm already, so I decided to pop over the road to see the Army Museum, where I was not welcome; perhaps it was the anniversary of the Imjin river battle or something!

Got back at the hostel in time for some more boozing; I'm glad I'm leaving while my liver is still intact. A lot of the others are also leaving, and one couple in particular are taking the train to Ulan Baatar, then going on to Hovsgul Nuur and over the Russian border there, which counts as 10/10 for sheer balls; I hope the Russians let them cross!

11/5/97

I was up early to see the Summer Palace; the train doesn't leave until 2100. I had thought of cycling, but Beijing's traffic for two hours each way sort of put me off; cyclists may lord it over the pedestrians, but the car drivers definitely lord it over the cyclists! The place itself is packed out (not surprising on a weekend), but mostly with locals rather than laowai, although the tour groups make appearances every now and again dutifully following their flag bearing guides! It's a beautiful place, and you can see why the Emperors spent so much time there. I had lunch with a Chinese family who invited me to their table- their son speaks some English- and I had the dubious honour of being selected to eat the duck's feet that came with their meal. Just so you know, they're a horrible combination of tasteless, chewy and watery! Later on I met some Chinese I had met on the train from Mongolia, and we managed to exchange some information as to where we had gone in the meantime; in their case all over Beijing buying, well, something. Must pay quite well, 'cause they both carried mobile phones, and they're horrendously expensive here, meaning worse than Britain.

Got back to the hostel, said my goodbyes, and got myself a taxi to Beijing West train station. It was only 8 pm at this stage, so I tried to find something to eat. The "convenient" English signs made no sense again (restaurants are apparently situated in building sites), but a small cafe upstairs was very happy to serve me a hundredweight of rice and vegetables, then stare at me and giggle while I demolished them. It didn't worry me, my stomach has always taken precedence over my fear of the unknown; or are the two related?

Anyway, the train arrived precisely on time, and I got on board and into my "compartment"; actually an open one with beds stacked three high on each side. Went straight to sleep.

Tour group, Summer Palace	Kunming Lake