Beijing Bites

It was along pending trip to be made and finally I could make this trip. I was all excited about it. I was going to see one of the seven wonders of the world. I was slated to travel by train on Friday night at 7. I left office early and went to the station. I had taken the sub way and half of the journey was smooth, the next half of the journey was something funny. There were so many people in the sub-way that I had literally push all the people to make my way out. Reminded me of Mumbai metro trains. Now coming to the train that took me to Beijing. Boy that was another luxury. It was more than a first class AC train. There were cabins and only four berths per cabins. It was so comfortable to travel in it. They also provided you with tooth brush and paste. And the cost was just 500RMB. I had taken a package tour, so all the arrangements of hotel booking, train tickets and local sight seeing was handled by the travel agent. I wanted to do it alone without anybody’s help but now I am glad that I did not. There were no untoward incidents but covering the places on your own would have been a pain. Morning oh god the mornings are too early here, at 5 in the morning the sun shines right into your eyes. I reached Beijing station at sharp 7, the slated time to arrive. I was suppose to wait in a nearby hotel before I joined a city tour group. The hotel was right opposite the railway station I had to just cross the road. At 7:45 my guide for the day Tony arrived and picked me up. There were other tourists in the bus and we had to pick more. For the day there were people from Finland, Taiwan and Iran. Totally we were 10.
Our first stop for the Day was Forbidden City. It is not a city it is a palace, so huge that is more or less like a city. There is a lot of history associated with the place. The guide was telling it very well. One thing I realized was that the emperor was damn afraid of people waiting to kill him. The walls are thick n tall, the ground beneath you had 8 layers of brick and there are no trees. Glad that there were no B2 bombers at that time. The palace is spread over an area of 72 hectares. There are huge court yards. Majestic carvings and buildings. Most of the buildings top is yellow in colour and from a sight it looks beautiful. There was also a clock museum inside the palace. The clocks were gifted to the emperor by foreign national. Clocks of all shapes and sizes were available. Most of them came or were made in England. There was one interesting clock which could show time based on flow of water known as water clock. I am still wondering how it does so. We entered from the south gate and came out of the north gate. It took is whole 2 hours there. Surprisingly there was a Star bucks coffee shop inside the palace and Tony said “Disgusting isn’t it” I totally agreed him. It was like having Pizza hut in Tirupati Temple. The next stop of the day was a silk museum. Here they show the life cycle of silk and how they make it. It was interesting and then shopping which I loathed the most. Coz I did not buy anything. Next was food. I was waiting for it hoping to eat duck. But we were served some imperial cuisine which mostly had pork and I could not eat well. The place where we had lunch was very near to the Temple of Heaven our next destination. By now the sun was blazing hot and the temperature was above 35 degC.
The temple of heaven is the place where the emperor came to worship the heaven god. He use to consider himself as a placement of the Heaven God on earth. He also worshiped here for a good harvesting season. There is an echo building here which happened accidentally during construction. Two interesting things. At once place if you stand and clap you can hear up to 3 echoes and in a different place 2 and in a different place 1 echo. Also if you stand the wall of the circular fence and speak anything the person standing at some other place can be heard. The temple occupies an area of 272 hectares. There is a lot of greenery here. By the time we were done looking at the temple I was drained out. All my piss evaporated in to air. Phew after a ling time such a thing had happened. The next destination was the Summer Palace and that being a little far got some time to relax and recharge. There are many places which were undergoing renovation and maintenance for Beijing Olympics 2008. So some places we could not see. The summer palace is like any other summer palace in the world. There was a huge lake, with three islands and a long corridor to walk along and a palace. The palace was located on a small hill and I must say from a distance it didn’t look easy to climb it. When we went near the entrance of the palace I had to look straight up to see the steps. Man it was no way possible considering the state in which we were. We just walked around the lake and came out of the palace compound. Now the sun was cooler. Next we went to a tea ceremony. To see how tea is made and served and different kinds of tea. IT was a good experience. Here there was a bird, I think a mocking bird which would respond to Nihao (Hi in Chinese). Some time pass there also. So that was the end of the first day trip for us. I was dropped back to my hotel. I freshened up and got ready to go to Tian an Men Square. I took a taxi to the place. The square is a huge open place and is at entrance of Forbidden City. Damn big place. You can have a rock concert here. Surrounding the square is a museum and the parliament. I was just walking here and seeing people and taking snaps when two girls approached me.
They started talking in English and we built up a conversation. I got to know that one of them was a English teacher in a school in Beijing and the other was her friend who had come to visit her. They said they were going to Old China Street and if I wanted to join them. I said ok let me check out the place. It was 7 in the evening and it looked like 5. Yes the sun doesn’t set here till 8 in the evening. Such a long day, damn!! We came to the old street and were walking along. It was not as I had expected or I did not see the entire place. There were some shopping places and some nice bars and local food stores. Then we decided to have some beer and went to café. But it was a tea café and they did not serve beer. So we had a tea instead. While we were having tea a police guy came into our room and started asking for ID with these girls. He did not say or ask anything to me. HE took the ID of on of the girl and asked the teacher to come along with him. Now I got scared. But she did not return back soon. Now I got spooky and wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. We finished the tea soon and got out of the place. The other girl accompanied me till the taxi stand and we bid farewell to each other. I wonder what had happened there. Anyways I was glad to be safe. I got back to the hotel and had my dinner.
Next day the tour was suppose to start at 8 in the morning. I got to call to be ready at 7:30. When I finished my breakfast and coming out, there was a girl looking for me. Mama mia, she was gorgeous. Sigh !!!. she spoke a lot and also wanted thing in her control. Her name was Sally. She used to always say Sally’s friends come here , sally’s group this way. There were three Germans who made mast fun of her. But she had enough data to feed us with. Our first stop was the Ming’s Tomb. The place is located away from the city, about an hours drive. This place has the bodies of the 13 emperors buried in different locations. They are the emperors who ruled China in different times. Not very impressive place. I was not excited to be there. I was looking forward for the Wall, which was the next destination. As we were approaching the Badaling Section of the Great wall, we could see some part of the wall over the mountains. It was a feast to the eyes. When we reached the place we had to take a cable pulley to reach a point from where you have to walk. We had two hours time to spend on the wall. We had to walk to tallest point on the great wall. The climb is not easy. At places the wall just follows the contour of the land. Phew it is a very physical and challenging up there. When you reach there you can find a tablet of Chairman Mao, which says “He who hast climbed is not a hero”. There are many vendors who make certificates and medals saying that you are a hero or you climbed the great wall and things like that. At the top it is windy and a little cold. It is a good relief from the Beijing heat. The wall is such a strong structure that most of it is still intact. I wonder how many people got themselves killed to get through the wall. At the end is was a wonderful experience.