November 2008
My first trip to China! I had a few days layover in Beijing while waiting for a flight out, so I booked a mini-stay through my travel agent in Australia. It included a few nights hotel accommodation and 2 single day trips to see the sights. One day to go see the temples and palaces around Beijing and one day to go up to the Great Wall.
The pollution in Beijing wasn’t as bad as I was expecting actually. It was bad, but I’d had this picture in my mind of not being able to see more than 10m in front of me such was the comments I’d heard from others. It was unpleasant, but not unbearable.
Also, one other thing, smoking. I don’t smoke, and I don’t like smoking. It makes my eyes sting and basically just makes me feel icky. In Australia and much of the western world, this is now much less of an issue since smoking has more or less been banned entirely in public. You can’t smoke in restraurants, bars, in buildings etc. In China, you still can, and people do. There’s no separation of smoking and non-smoking areas inside restaurants or anything. People light up everywhere and you can’t ask them to put it out. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t smoke, they’re well within their rights to do so. It’s just something you need to be aware of if you’re in China, especially if you have reactions to cigarette smoke.
So first things first. The hotel? I stayed at the Holiday Inn – Temple of Heaven.
The good? Friendly staff, clean rooms, awesome deep bathtub (since my bathtub at home is tiny), great breakfast, decent restaurants/bars, free gym access and free internet (LAN) access in the hotel rooms.
The not so good? The bed was like sleeping on a concrete slab. I like a harder mattress, but this was ridiculous. Also, the hotel is quite a distance from everything. With a name like Holiday Inn Temple of Heaven, I’d kind of expected it to be near the Temple of Heaven. But it was still a couple of km away. And was probably 7-8km away from the CBD and about 5-6km away from other tourist attractions.
Would I recommend it? Definitely. But probably not for tourists, purely because of its location. But if you’re prepared to get taxis everywhere, then that’s probably not such an issue. It would be a great place to stay for business people though.
Next, playing tourist! The company I booked all this through organised private day tours for me. So I had my own guide and car (+driver).
Day 1: Temples and palaces.
I got taken to Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. Was amazing really. The line in Tianamen Square to get in to see Mao’s tomb was phenomenal. I’m not exaggerating when I say there had to be at least 50000 people in that line. Then we went in to the Forbidden City. The crowds were insane. It’s always busy apparently, but I was there on a weekend, so it was worse. My advice? Go during the week. I always thought the Chinese were a polite people. But get in their way when they want something? You get swatted away like a fly. I was in a line to see one of the rooms in one of the buildings and got pushed out of the way by all the natives because “they think they have more right to see it than you do“. Huh. I paid my entry fee to get in just like they did. What gives them the right to deny me access?
But I digress. I tripped ass up at one point because the ground inside the Forbidden City is quite uneven, and with all the pushing and shoving going on to see things, it’s not hard to miss a big crack in the stones!
So then we moved on to lunch! And I kid you not, I had the best kung pao chicken ever. I wonder if I can convince that restaurant to ship me a ton of it back here? Then it was time for my guide to do her bit for her country and force me into certain shops to buy stuff. Ended up at some pearl shop. It was nice, but really not my thing. And I don’t know anybody who actually wears pearls. Not even my mother. So it was a waste of time, but it’s one of those places that you can’t really leave without buying anything. So I bought some little small pearl necklace which I’ll put away somewhere in the hopes that one day I’ll meet someone who’ll acutally wear the thing. So while it wasn’t expensive, it wasn’t really that cheap either.
Then we moved on to the Summer Palace. That was nice I guess, but I wasn’t overly awed by it. There’s a big man-made lake in the middle, and you can go for a short boat ride across for about 10 RMB on a dragon boat. That was nice, and made for some nice photo ops of the temples up on the hill. Then we headed back towards town and the Temple of Heaven. Was a bit boring to be honest. Though one of the interesting things was to see huge groups of locals inside singing nationalistic type songs as the sun was going down. Lots of walking that day, so I was tired and more or less just went back to the hotel and crashed!
Day 2: The Great Wall and stuff along the way.
Left early, as we were going to the Great Wall at Mutinayu rather than Badaling. There’s apparently significantly less tourists at Mutinayu and the wall is in better shape. I’m just taking others word for it here since I’ve never been to Badaling.
First stop along the way was Ming’s tombs. Which aren’t really tombs, it’s more just lots of monuments and stuff. The tombs are actually out in the hills somewhere from what I could gather. Was a nice place though. Turning autumnal colours. And since it’s sort of out in the country side, the air was cleaner and things just looked more alive.
Then off to forced shopping again. Visited a jade factory. That was actually something I liked, so I bought a couple of nicknacks. Expensive though. You could probably get the same things much cheaper at the markets in Beijing, these guys know it’s a regular tourist stop for tour buses and stuff, so I think they add about 50% markup on everything. In fact, I saw similar stuff in Beijing airport on the way home for about half the price, so that tells you something. Also went to some factory that does some french thing called Cloisonne or something? It’s copper based and they add some kind of enamel/paint over the top of it and make vases and ornaments and stuff like that. It all looked nice, but way to kitsch for me, so I didn’t buy any of it. I don’t know anybody else personally who’d like it, but I can imagine it’s probably collectable. Had lunch at that factory in their restaurant. Wasn’t bad, but it was western Chinese food. Deep fried stuff. Wasn’t particularly impressed really.
Then the long drive up to Mutinayu. It’s up in the Mountains, and we got to pass through a few small villages on the way. Didn’t stop, but you got a look at what more rural life was like. Eventually got there and walked past the hoards of street stall owners trying to sell stuff and took the cable car up to the wall itself. It’s on quite a steep part of the landscape. Wandered around for an hour or two, climbed up a fair way. The size of it is completely mind boggling. And this was only a small section of it!
On the way down again, I was accosted by several street store owners trying to get me to buy stuff. Eventually I gave in to one of them because I wanted souveneirs and there’s no actual proper shop there to buy stuff from, only street stalls. I then proceeded to get ripped off. I’ll spare the details, but it came down to me unwittingly paying way too much for my souveneirs. Partly my own fault for not recognising the tourist scam, but also disappointing to realise that the scam is actually operating to such an extent in the first place. First time I’ve ever fallen for something like this. My advice? Be wary of the prices they offer, you’re probably not getting as good of a deal as you think you are. Even 10% of their original asking price might be too much. Lesson learned I guess.
Another long day, but back to the hotel again to crash.
One thing that bothered me about the tour thing, was that I’d been told before I left, by many many people who’d been to China before, that tipping was not expected and was not the way things were done there. I think things there have changed. I was actually asked by my tour guide and driver for tips at the end of my 2nd day. That was really off-putting. Even in the tipping mad society of America, they don’t actually ask you for tips. It may be expected there and you’ll cop crap if you don’t, but you won’t be asked for it outright. Some Chinese have obviously adopted the attitude of “you’re from a western country, you can afford it, so we’re going to take advantage of that“. I don’t mind tipping if someone does a good job, but being asked for a tip was just wrong.
Flew out the next day, and that was the end of my Chinese adventure!
Will I go back? Maybe. I think if I do, I will probably jump on an organised group tour or something. There’s strength in numbers. Being there on your own, it’s too easy to be taken advantage of. I’d like to go up in the mountains and see Giant Pandas in the wild or something.
