Beijing

So how does the capital compare to other Asian cities i have been to like Delhi, Ho Chi Minh, Singapore, Hanoi, Bangkok. All of which are on my - yes i would love to go back - list.

Its big. Any city that has six (yes 6) ring roads is big. Everywhere you go you see lots of high rise apartment blocks and that means a lot of people. But there are not hoards of people on pavements or coming out of metro stations, they are not hanging on the outside of buses, there are not thousands of scooters or tut tuts. So where are they? They are in cars, lots of them. To be fair roads are very wide, lots of dual carriageways with 3/4 lanes either side. But this is a second gear city because the volume of cars is immense. I have only skirted around LA but i guess it is similar.

Scale means that despite being here three days i have still not got my bearings, cant quit understand how it fits together. I have seen amazing historical sites similar to those other cities (well perhaps not the case in Singapore) but i have not found its soul. That means at some stage i need to come back, not because i have fallen in love with the city but because i don't really know it. I need to give it some more time to flirt before i  can decide whether i have fallen for it. That just me, always playing hard to get.

Great Wall and Ming Tombs

Whilst you spend a full day at each, today was a combined trip. This is logical given they are close to each other and given you kept seeing the same faces i was not the only one with this arrangement. If you have plenty of time, i would probably recommend staying a couple of days near one of the locations and avoiding the two hour + journey each way therefore being able to spend a bit more time at each.

I was slightly nervous about seeing the wall. I have been lucky enough to see quite a few famous world sites, such as Uluru, Grand Canyon, Taj Mahal and they have all had the wow factor that goes with the reputation. Before coming to the Badaling stretch of the wall, i had read that it was the touristy one and that "purists" recommended other parts. So i slightly feared seeing hoards of people walking along with their kfc/macdonalds wearing kiss me quick hats.

Not to worry. It was busy, being a Saturday after all, but not uncomfortably so. And yes it passed the wow factor test. You feel quite insignificant walking such a small part of the wall and you can only imagine the effort and imagination that went behind its creation. The views are stunning, but many locations also benefit from that, here in the context that makes it even more special.

The tombs were similarly unique. 13 tombs from the Ming Dynasty (there were 16 emperors but the first built his near the old capital, the second fled after being usurped by his uncle and the last wanted to do his own thing). Only two are open - upper parts only you cant do your Raiders of the Lost Ark Impression and go underground and once again the scale is amazing. Set flanked on three sides by mountains, with a river crossing the plains, the distance between the first gate took about 10 mins by car to the oldest and largest tomb - you can only imagine how long a procession that would have been.

Photos will follow later - i have managed to download from camera to memory stick but yet to upload to Picasa. This might be one of the sites you cant access on China, so they might have to wait until i get home.

Beijing Full Day Tour

I am only in Beijing for a couple of days and the first full day was spent exploring the main attractions namely,

- Tiananmen Square
- The Forbidden City
- The Temple of Heaven
- The Summer Palace

Tiananmen Square of course brings pictures to your mind that are not necessarily top of the Chinese tourist board's "what shall we put on the postcard list", it was actually quite modest despite being the largest square in the world. There are a lot of impressive buildings on the edges, including the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao (where even at 8-30am there was an endless queue) and thankfully limited numbers of street sellers/tradesman.

From the square you enter the Forbidden City. Built in the 15th century, but updated over the years, it is a combination of buildings spread over 44 (? i really should remember these facts or at least have some idea on size) hectares, used by the various emperors, their wives, concubines, political appointments, soldiers,staff etc.... You get a real feel of scale and history in a country that was no doubt very different to modern day china.

After the city, we have time for an additional stop. Regardless of how friendly, intelligent, sophisticated etc. ... your guide, you know what this means......sales time. On this occasion its a silk factory, which just happens to have a shop as well. Normal set up, brief introduction into the silk worm and silk making process (this bit of the tour is always interesting) and then a gradual move into shop. Guide Amy promised it would not be hard sell, and to be fair it was just a constant soft sell (think 15 mins of tainted love on repeat shuffle and you get the picture) and eventually they worked out they should try their efforts on the next tour party through the door. The goods were all good quality - i have no idea whether good value or not, but i am not really a silk shirt, tie or pyjamas type of guy so they were always going to struggle. Not for the first time i looked at some really beautiful carpets and thought maybe,for a few seconds before remembering it would not fit size or style back home.

After this, off to The Temple of Heaven, a large park used daily for morning exercise, albeit when originally established it was used twice a year by the emperor for ceremonies. The temple itself was impressive,  when we turned up around 11-30am the grounds had turned from an exercise area to a surreal "strictly" as local middle aged couples danced away to what i guess was Chinese  mood music.

Final stop was the Summer Palace. The palace itself, a number of buildings scattered around, is not really the main attraction to this Unesco World Heritage site which has a stunning setting, including large lake, the longest art gallery in the world (the long corridor) and great backdrops.

Tomorrow off to Great Wall, heard that's quite good as well

ps according to wiki, forbidden city is 720,000 square metres, no idea what that is in hectares

Off to China

So i am going away slightly earlier this year (which does mean its only a couple of weeks after getting back from France) but i wanted to try China and most of the trips i looked at starting tailing off in November/December as the weather gets colder. A bit by luck, but after booking most of the reviews have said that October is one of the best times to come over, so fingers crossed.

I went back to Trailfinders again, and after having to correct a slight over-estimation of available budget, i have ended with a trip which combines Beijing, Xian, Yangtze cruise, Shanghai and a couple of days in Abu Dhabi breaking up the return journey.  Abu Dhabi combined a reasonable value flight (Ethiad) and a location i had not been to before.

Flights over were fairly uneventful, extended stop over in Abu Dhabi due to Beijing flight being delayed by 90 minutes, but arrived in Beijing around 10am to find:

- we landed at a massive, almost empty, terminal, which was built for Olympics;
- no queues at immigration, through in 5 mins;
- a journey by car to hotel where traffic was as bad as most large capital cities (but not as chaotic as other Asian cities i have been to);
- the expected smog.

So after checking in, today has been about acclimatisation (not a sensible word to use without benefit of spell check) with main sightseeing starting tomorrow at 8am.