Xian

The Chinese Government decided to commandeer our booked train from Beijing to Xian so I had a frantic day trying to book some air tickets; fortunately I found some at not too unreasonable a price. I also had to find a day tour of the Terracotta Warriors which I also booked for the day after arrival. The Hotel was an Ibis that I had booked from the UK but I was a bit apprehensive about the price, as for two nights including breakfast it was £34. As it turned out it was the usual Ibis standard as found in the UK. I had researched the local restaurants and found a famous dumpling one near to the Bell Tower square called the Defachang. We were unable to get a Taxi so we decided to walk but at some point got lost, luckily I flagged a Taxi down who took us directly there. The choice was either shrimp, pork or seafood with a variation which included mushrooms, we ordered Pork and Shrimp which was somehow lost in translation as we eventually got a steamer of 10 pork and shrimp dumplings so we had to order a further 10. I was slightly appeased when the bill arrived for 20 dumplings and 3 beers, altogether £5.20.
The tour next day was ‘different’ as the guide was not the usual boring type but a Chinese guy call Clarence Guo who had written a book on the Qin warriors who were the models for the Terracotta Warriors. The weather was bad and we started out by visiting some Chinese cave dwellers, not my idea of a tour, invading people’s homes but the family seemed Ok about it, must be the financial remuneration.
The next stop on the tour was the highlight of our visit to China, the Terracotta Warriors. Words cannot describe the experience as you gaze into the pits, as they are called, 3 in total, rows upon rows of different types of figures from archers, kneeling and standing, charioteers, infantry, horses and officers all moulded with different features and stances. What we saw was only a fraction that have been uncovered to date, in pit 1 alone there is estimated to be 6000 figures in total. Pits 2 and 3 contained similar figures but were fewer in total.
Another announcement that amused us at the Airport as we were leaving Xian was ‘Passengers for Shanghai are requested to board through gate 6 and please enjoy your fright’

Beijing

We arrived at Beijing West station at around 15:45 and after clearing immigration, which was much easier than we expected, we went outside to find a taxi. There were no signs at all for TAXI, even if it was spelt slightly different you would expect a sign. After searching the concourse, and avoiding millions of people sitting on bedrolls, I decided to leave Sheila with the cases and hunt around. At last I found a Taxi service tucked away partially underground and we managed to load our cases and proceed to show the Driver a printed sheet with a map and directions. He started off down the road but stopped a short distance away and asked for the map again, after peering at it for several minutes he took a pair of glasses out of the glove compartment, the lenses were like milk bottle bottoms and he still had difficulty seeing it. Needless to say we started getting a bit nervous about his ability to see the road to drive but in these circumstances there is nothing you can do about it. The Beijing traffic is horrendous and it took us ¾ of an hour to get 3 Km but eventually after me directing him with the map we reached the Hotel. No thanks to Mr Magoo.
The Hotel was excellent. On the 18/10, after acquiring some city maps, we set off to see the Forbidden City, Behai Park and Tiananmen Square.
I don’t think I have seen so many people in one place at any one time; if you shouted ‘Hey You’ here there would be hundreds of blokes turn round (How you know my name?). It was good that the place was huge and we were surprised at how fast we got the tickets and passed inside. You can spend a whole day inside the Forbidden City and there are some very interesting things to see but after 3 hours we reached the North Gate and decided we had had enough. We walked to Behai Park after negotiating hundreds of hawkers who were trying to sell you anything from rickshaw rides to cobs of corn.
The park itself was quite big and you could hire battery boats to cruise on the lake but we decided to walk round which was really pleasant. Next was Tiananmen Square which we thought was a bit of a disappointment, again there were millions of people all wanting their photo shoots with Chairman Mao. 10 miles later and we got back to the Hotel absolutely exhausted, thank god for Starbucks coffee.
We found a great restaurant just outside the hotel and for loads of food and beer the bill was only £16.
We decided to take a tour to the Great Wall at Mutianyu as this was the nearest that was not touristy and was recently renovated. Before we got there we stopped off at the Ming Tombs area which has a pathway through them called the Sacred Way, which is a total of 7.5Km but we only walked 2Km. On the way to the Great Wall we stopped again at the customary Jade shop and for Lunch. We got to know our fellow tourers who were a mixed bag of Argentinean, Canadian, American, Japanese and Australian, 11 of us altogether and we got on really well. The Great Wall was accessed via a cable car; Sheila as usual was a bit unnerved as she’s not too fond of heights and this being the open ski type lift. The GW itself lived up to all our expectations, snaking it’s way over the surrounding hills and mountains, the scenery spectacular. We managed to traverse 3 towers, but it was deceptive as the connecting battlements had quite steep gradients and steps. I think this was enough as 3 towers was probably going to look the same as 10 towers but this didn’t stop our companions bragging how many towers they had managed.
On the way back down to the Car Park we had the option to go via a toboggan run which was a shute with small carts and a lever brake, as the queue was quite large we opted to return via the cable cars as Sheila thought this was the lesser of two evils.
The next day we visited the Olympic area and this was surreal, seeing it through the TV was not quite as good as ‘live’, it was really a huge area and the Birds Nest superb. Overall we enjoyed Beijing tremendously and wouldn’t hesitate to come back at some point, old and modern, really clean streetwise but also quite polluted at times.
Here are some signs that get ‘lost in translation’ and quite amused us.
Breakfast buffet: Skimming Milk, Rice Crispiest.
Airport: Please make sure you bags have not been packed with other peoples stuff.