Beijing Memories

Late March 1989. Mum and I arrive in Beijing on an early morning flight from Xian. Our local guide fails to pick us up from the airport so we take a taxi in to the city, find the back street operation that calls itself our tour agency, and amuse ourselves watching a man wash his hands with soap, water, then dirt! Hmmm.

Soon we are off to our hotel, situated south of the CBD on the road to the Temple of Heaven, where we spend the rest of the day waiting for our local guide to get his act together and arrange our itinerary. We have caused considerable confusion by tacking on an extra 4 days to our stay in Beijing, four days when we won’t have our lives ordered by fitting a limited amount of sightseeing in around sumptuous banquets at every meal. We will be free agents, something the Chinese authorities haven’t quite got their heads around yet.

Our first day of sightseeing we tackle the big-ticket items: a trip north of Beijing to the Ming Dynasty tombs and The Great Wall. I am suitably impressed by both structures, but not by the appalling sanitation and the need to bribe policemen in order for our driver to proceed. We return to Beijing tired, in desperate need of a toilet that doesn’t smell like a sewer, and a little poorer.

Day 2 we tick off a few more items on the bucket list. First up is Tiananmen Square where we line up to traipse past Mao’s embalmed body laid out in his mausoleum. Then across the road to The Forbidden City for a whirlwind tour through it’s many halls and palaces. We are in a hurry, because it’s soon time for lunch, yet another excessive banquet washed down with local beer. I have been enjoying the local beers though!

After lunch it’s off to The Temple of Heaven, which is truly a beautiful place and we vow to return there once we have more time on our hands. But next it’s off to The Friendship Store, before dinner and a visit to the International Club for an acrobatics show. Those kids are amazing, all that balancing of crockery and bodily contortions.

The Friendship Store was a Chinese institution back in those days, because it was the only place you could purchase goods using Foreign Exchange Certificates, or FECs. Goods sold in The Friendship Stores were considered better quality, so could be sold to foreigners without fear that they would fall apart within minutes. Friendship Stores also sold foreign goods, so Chinese people were very keen to get hold of FECs so they could buy a TV or some other highly sought after electronic equipment. Which meant there was a flourishing black market. Fast forward 20 years and now pretty well everything is made in China and exported to the world. Needless to say, Friendship Stores and FECs are a distant memory.

Our third day we venture out to the Summer Palace, before spending a couple of lazy hours strolling through some of the parks surrounding the Forbidden City. That evening we dress up to go to a posh restaurant to eat Peking Duck. A proper meal consists of making your way through various dishes comprising all the duck’s innards before the main course of crispy skin and meat wrapped up in a crepe with spring onions and plum sauce. And that’s topped off with a hearty duck soup. Very nice!

Day 4 we say goodbye to both our guides, breathe a huge sigh of relief and head off on our own. A bus and a subway ride away we arrive at the Tibetan Lama Temple and are overjoyed to see not only a working temple, but also a lack of tourist crowds. After a wander around here, we head off by foot through hutongs, and stop for a while at a Confucian Temple with a small archaeological museum and a map of the old city walls.  Even in 1989 there was little left of the old Beijing, and hutongs were rapidly being destroyed to make way for new modern buildings. With their decrepit courtyard houses and appalling sanitation it wasn’t a surprise, but it’s always sad to see a city losing its architectural heritage.

Back on the main drag we visited both the Bell Tower and Drum Tower, before heading down through Coal Hill Park to the shopping district of Wanfujing Lu. Next we hit the evening food markets along Changan Avenue, using our black market Renminbi to sample the local cuisine. Noodle dishes, dumplings, fried sparrows on sticks! Even ice cream. Failing to find the right bus stop, watching numerous bus 39s pass us by without stopping, we trudge our way back to our hotel. Exhausted, we scrub half a hill of dirt off our faces before heading to bed.

Next day we decide to visit the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, which is in outer Beijing. This involves taking a bus into town, a trolley bus to the zoo, another bus to the Summer Palace then a final bus out towards the Botanic Gardens, before walking down a dry dusty road to the temple. Although not a working temple it was in a pretty setting amongst gardens and pagodas. The trip back, however, was a nightmare, where aggressive use of elbows was the only way to get onto the overcrowded plethora of buses we needed to get back to town.

After another meal of snacks at the night market we opted for the shuttle bus back to our hotel from its sister hotel closer to town. We have enough time for a lazy cocktail whilst waiting for it to leave.

Day 6 we return to the Forbidden City, now experts at wielding our elbows in the fight for a seat on the number 39 bus in to town. We enjoy an entire day wandering around through the various rooms, collections, gardens and relics that still remain. Although many Chinese imperial treasures were taken to Taiwan by the Kuomintang when they lost to the Communists, there was still a lot to amuse us for hours. And without the pressure to head off for a sumptuous midday banquet we enjoyed a quiet picnic in the Imperial Garden and continued our sightseeing.

That evening we decided to try Peking Duck again, this time opting for a less opulent restaurant where the clientele were all local, some of whom spoke English. We shared our table with one young couple who worked at one of the big hotels, and were complimented by others for choosing to frequent their local eating establishment. And the food tasted better too.

Our second last day in Beijing we go shopping. Dazhalang Hutong was a maze of shops selling all sorts of products at cheaper prices than the market stalls near the tourist sights. The nearby hutongs were in a dire state of disrepair, frequented by rag and bone men on tricycles and mangy cats. From the main Post Office we take a subway to the Beijing Observatory, a museum of instruments once used by star gazing Jesuits, before wandering through a few more shops and markets, changing some money on the black market, snacking on street food and indulging in overpriced cocktails back at the hotel.

Our final day in Beijing we visit the Post Office to send off some of my purchases. As I was heading off through South East Asia and not heading home with my mother, we decided to send home some of the heavy books we had bought. Rather than burden mum with the extra luggage, we decided to brave the bureaucracy of sending a parcel overseas.

That’s a story in itself!

Once were warriors

Thought I might take us back to China, 1989. When I last left off we were about to board a plane to Xi'an, home to the only decently intact city walls left in China and a recently excavated burial mound full of terracotta figures. But before we could leave Guilin we needed to bribe the airline officials to get a seat on the plane. Yes we already had a ticket, but we were not going to get to use it that day without greasing palms.

Corruption in China has always been a problem, and back in the 80's when personal incomes were universally poor (the Communist Party still had a stranglehold on all economic enterprises) people abused their positions of power to extort extra money wherever they could. As Western visitors we frequently experienced situations where we were denied access, only to gain access by the payment of an extremely small bribe. As much as we abhorred this situation, and tried not to support a corrupt practice, we really had no choice if we wanted to go where we went and see what we saw within the time frame we had. Meeting true backpackers back in Hong Kong, who'd travelled independently, it was patently obvious that we had only been able to see what we saw because we paid for it. Or perhaps I should say, our guide paid for it. Presumably bribery was part of the budget. Our guide explained the situation and we didn't act ignorant. I'm not supporting corruption per se, but it's a choice we all make, whether we are aware of it or not. We understood the way it worked and chose to comply. Go ahead, shoot me!

So, Xi'an. We were now in the north in early Spring, so it was still a wee bit chilly. And our delay in Guilin had left us with only a day to see the sights, which are quite a few what with White Goose Pagodas, big long walls to walk around and a trip to the countryside to see the warriors.

I'm not going to bang on about the warriors, because you've heard about them, you've seen pictures, and if you haven't, try Google! What we enjoyed about Xi'an was the city walls, the groups of men playing cards in their old Mao suits, and the incredible stele museum. I bought a beautiful stele "rubbing" of the monk Xuanzhuang, the famous monk who travelled to India and back with Buddhist scriptures. Haven't heard of him? How about that hilarious Japanese cartoon Monkey? Same guy. My rubbing these days is mounted on a large board in my yoga/meditation room. Love it!

Next stop Beijing.

I do love a good plan

I'm so excited. Having made the decision to take the second six months of this year off, I'm already in planning mode. I've mentioned before that I really enjoy the research stage, finding out as much as I can about a place before hand, and then starting to come up with a plan.

My plans are not what other people call itineraries. No way would I commit to actually booking stuff ahead of time, aside from an airfare that is. My reasoning is, that if I have enough knowledge about a place I can estimate an approximate amount of time I might spend there before moving on, thus working out what might be feasible within the time span of my visit. I kind of end up with this massive amount of information about my destination, from which I can pick and chose.

I travel slow. Sometimes when I read on a travel forum or in someone's blog about a projected itinerary I begin to get a head spin. Seriously! Probably the most annoyingly tedious part of travel for me is the incessant packing and repacking, and so I usually plan to stay at least a couple of nights, often much longer, in most destinations. I also find that it isn't really practical to spend more than 3-4 hours doing sightseeing in a day, and that I like to factor in a heavy dose of aimless wandering, chatting to locals, exploring markets and experimenting with new foods. All of which can take me in any number of directions.

Because I plan for a snail's pace, I sometimes find I am running ahead of schedule. In which case it's nice to be able to pluck a destination out of the research hat and run with it. That's what happened to me in Java in 2010, when I headed off to Madura, a fairly sizeable island just off Surabaya, home to some of the friendliest people I've ever met. Not to mention great food and nice beaches. And no mass tourism whatsoever. Yeah, most of you have never heard of it right?

My two countries of choice for this upcoming trip have many similarities yet are also vastly different. I'm not talking about New Zealand. I'm just going there first for some alpine hedonism but perhaps I could rebrand it as pre-trip training and acclimatisation. Because I'm going high altitude trekking in China!!

Everybody goes to Nepal and India to trek the Himalayas, and one day I'll probably go there too. But China has Tibet, not only the Tibetan Autonomous Region where independent travel is no longer possible, but also the neighbouring provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan. Here there are spectacular glaciers, high altitude lakes and pastures, Tibetan monasteries, yak herders, and some of the most biodiverse environments on the planet. Not to mention a rich cultural heritage and the ability to travel relatively unhindered by the government authorities.

Researching a destination like this is so important. Being abreast of the politics means being aware of recent local uprisings and the extreme sensitivity of the Chinese government. Since the March 2008 uprising in Lhasa there have been sporadic protests throughout the Tibetan milieu, causing the government to restrict access to certain areas, even some outside the TAR, during anniversaries of these events. Last year much of north western Sichuan was closed to Westerners for more than a month after a protest at one of the monasteries. And each year in March the government suspends all western permits to visit the TAR whatsoever. I do wonder whether the response by the government is somewhat counterproductive, as few tourists speak the language so our access to knowledge about what was going on on a day to day basis would be extremely limited. Publicising it through restricting access not only legitimises the protest, but puts it on the radar for longer than it might have otherwise been.

Prior to March 2008, access to Tibet wasn't so restrictive, and so there's some excellent books around on trekking the region,  including areas outside the TAR. There's also a handful of informative websites advertising numerous trekking options within Sichuan and Yunnan, aside from the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. I'm eternally grateful to whoever left that trip brochure behind in a guesthouse in Berastagi, North Sumatra, because it was in that brochure that I first heard of TLG. It was that dream that got me to Yunnan in late 2008, a visit that made me fall in love with China, and make me want to return to explore further. Well, 2012 is shaping up to be the year!!

At present I'm hoping to spend 2-3 months in China, doing a number of expeditions into the hills. No extreme mountaineering, just trudging along, crossing a few passes above 4000m ASL, camping in alpine meadows, visiting remote monasteries, some glaciers, and generally gorging myself on spectacular mountain scenery. I've found at least five or six possible 2-3 week treks I could do, so I'm accumulating lots of options. I'm also planning to include some tourist sights, I mean a visit to Sichuan is hardly complete without seeing the pandas is it? There's also an all important assignation with the local food specialties, like hot pot. Years of watching Iron Chef means I'm looking forward to trying some hot Sichuan pepper dishes!! And then there's dumplings for breakfast, I'm salivating already....

I'm going to look for company for these treks - besides local guides - amongst friends, along the way, and also out here in the world wide web. I've had mostly fantastic travel companions in the past, and have learnt from the bad ones how to work out whether a prospective travel companion will be compatible. I'm a journey woman, not a destination junkie, and I now know how to tell the difference.

If you are at all interested in doing some China trekking with me, between September and November this year, then drop me a line. All comments are moderated, which means I can delete your contact details prior to comments being published.

As for country number two? Well I mentioned it in a previous post: Myanmar. More on that next.

Don't knock it till you've done it

Before I headed down the beach, I was recalling my travel to China back in 1989. I left you in Guilin, on the River Li, about to take a ferry trip to Yangshuo.

As an obsessive travel forum/ travel blog lurker, it seems to me that the ferry trip from Guilin to Yangshuo is these days denigrated as a bit of a tourist trap, and that only the lower reaches are worth the expense of jumping on a boat to glide along a river surrounded by karst peaks. I've also read similar things about numerous other boat trips along rivers throughout Asia, and basically, there's no consensus really. There's those that put down any trip that includes the more middle class package tourist, unless it's possible to see the real estate by a more "real' method. This was the logic around the well heeled tourists taking the tour boats, and the backpackers taking the felucca down the Nile in Egypt. Then there's those like me, that realise that the real estate is what we've come to see, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If a person is more concerned about the comfort, or lack thereof, of their chosen mode of transport, then I suspect they won't have the inclination to enjoy the spectacular scenery they are floating through. So live and let live.

Anyway, back in 1989 I can assure you the River Li cruise was already a tourist trap. But I kind of get a kick out of this anyway (I clearly recall us all doing brown eyes from our felucca at passing cruise boats all those years ago!), as I enjoy watching other people and how they deal with a different environment and culture. And the whole touring palaver was new to me back then, everything fascinated me. In fact it still does.

The cruise was spectacular: karst peaks, mist, clouds, moody river, verdant green paddy fields, and occasional fishermen. There were at least 10 ferry boats, and there was lots of hooting of horns and possibly some racing shenanigans going on between boat captains. We were the only westerners on our boat, the rest being from Taiwan and Japan and after considerable jostling, the boats set off. The first part was thick with peaks surrounding us on all sides, the middle section was undulating pastures, then the peaks returned as we approached Yangshuo. Arriving in this small town we were shocked to see so many tourists alighting, the numerous signs in English and to realise we were in some sort of different place to anywhere we'd been before. Yes, this was our first backpacker ghetto.


Over the next day and a half mum and I were left to our own devices. We were installed in one of the better hotels in town, although the room was damp, the toilet didn't flush and there was no hot water. Or electricity a good deal of the time either. We checked in and headed out, passing The Hard Rock Cafe, Charlie Chaplin's Bar and the Sheraton Hotel. We had a wonderful giggle at the Chinglish and had a first encounter with the ethnic minority people of Southern China. Little did I know that 20 years later I would spend over 3 months exploring these interesting cultures of SE Asia, absolutely fascinated with their textiles and needlework.

Next we did some money changing. In 1989 foreigners could only exchange their western currency for Foreign Exchange Certificates, or FECs. The people's money, Renminbi (RMB), could not be exchanged into foreign currency, and could not be used in the government owned Friendship Stores to buy overseas consumer goods, like TVs. Funny to think that back then everything wasn't made in China! The locals were very keen to get hold of FECs, and tourists were keen to get hold of Renminbi to pay for day to day expenses, especially as the exchange rate was about 1.8 RMB to 1 FEC. The only way to get RMB was to use the black market, often small private stallholders selling tourist souvenirs. Whilst mum rode shotgun, I did the deal, and we emerged with a fistful of real chinese money. Boy we were proud of ourselves!!

The difference between these two forms of currency meant both sides had the opportunity to get a good deal. As both FECs and RMB were in "Yuan", the official currency, shopkeepers would bargain in Yuan but expect FEC. Imagine their disappointment when the tourist gives them RMB instead. Score one to the tourist!! And if the tourist travelled using RMB the cost of living was so cheap. It wasn't totally all on the tourist's side though, because transportation and entry prices to tourist sites were much more expensive, and often only accepted in FECs. When the Chinese government finally discarded the two tiered monetary system they also outlawed different pricing tiers as well.  But that combination of fear, danger and joy experienced when playing the black market for the first time is an experience I will always cherish.

Next morning we decided to head out of town on bicycles to explore the countryside. Mum's newly acquired asthma had resolved by now, but it appeared that the saying "just like riding a bike" isn't totally to be believed. I am sure my mother has ridden a bike in her youth, but do you think she could manage to stay upright on a bog standard Chinese bike? No way Jose, she needed trainer wheels, not an available extra option at the bike hire place outside the Yangshuo Hotel. What to do?

We'd been in China for at least a week by now, and had not failed to notice that riding a bike is rarely a solo affair. Mum, dad, three kids, two chickens and a pig could be easily accommodated on one rusty Chinese treadly by the average peasant, so why were we getting all hot under the collar that the old lady couldn't ride her own bike? Admittedly the steel carrier rack would not have been all that comfortable, but mum cheerfully perched herself sidesaddle behind me and we peddled off into the countryside. Let me tell you, when a westerner cycles past with a more senior western lady perched behind her, Chinese style, on one bicycle, most peasants fall off their bicycles themselves. A few westerners did too! We laughed a lot that day, both with and at the locals, saw some beautiful scenery, and only once ended up in a ditch when mum tried to move her weight to get a little more comfy.

That evening we visited one of the backpacker bars for an Irish Coffee, discovered banana pancakes for the very first time, and had my first exposure to the loud fat arrogant American tourist.

The next day we drove back to Guilin and prepared to fly on to Xi'an, home of the terracotta warriors.