Beijing & The Great Wall Of China

Me On The Longest Wall In The World

Our train from Shanghai to Beijing was for the most part, pleasant. Our only drama was we were sharing with two others, one of which snored at decibels loud enough to hide the sound of a small Apollo space rocket taking off. The other Chinese man on the bunk above who clearly didn't know 'Mr Snorer' would every so often tut in disgust at the fact he couldn't get to sleep, which I found amusing because between the rhythmic snores and the occassional tut - it seemed to create some familiar song which I couldn't quite place - I'm thinking some 'Girls Aloud' number perhaps.

One factor that we were slowly dealing with since arriving in China, was the language barrier. I think in all the other countries that I have traveled, only Indonesia and now China, were those where English is spoken so rarely and / or not very well, that it could be a bit of an issue at times. In the hotels it isn't too bad, but head out onto the street (the real world) and it becomes difficult to communicate. I mean to be fair, thats probably an exaggeration - you can always get by, it just meant that everything took a little longer than it should. Taxi drivers are perhaps the poorest English speakers, which always seemed odd to me, because most of them probably have more encounters with tourists than in most other professions. We jumped in a cab outside Beijing's train station only to be shouted at by the driver. He was waving his arms about like he was trying to bring a small plane into land, before calling all his mates over to shout at us as well. Me and Harriet sat in the back of the taxi, half asleep because we hadn't had any (thanks to 'Mr Snorer') and being shouted at by numerous Chinese men who we couldn't understand in the slightest. Eventually we realised what they were saying and got out the cab. Apparently we were trying to get a taxi to our hotel which was only down the road and the driver was not prepared to take us such short distances. So we walked to our hotel, which actually, with very heavy backpacks, in the swealtering heat, wasn't all that short of a walk!!!

We had a lot to do in Beijing, or at least there was a lot of things we wanted to do so we got right to it with a trip to the Ming Tombs. Located 50km north of urban Beijing, the Tombs are the resting place of the Emperors of the Ming Dynasty. In the 15th Century, Emperor Yongle moved the capital of China from Nanjing to the present capital Beijing. He was the first to be buried there before a following 12 Emperors were laid to rest in the same area. Harriet and I had a good look around some of the palaces and tombs. The area is huge and there is too much to cover in one go, so we centered on the main tomb, Yongle's burial place known as Changling. It's laid out as a series of buildings, each one leading onto the next. The Chinese styled stuctures are very detailed and particularly impressive. In the garden area's they have little seats shaped as elephants. Inside, it has become a sort of museum, with lots of descriptive text explaing this fascinating period in Chinese history.

We then headed off to get some lunch. One thing about any tour, or hired taxi who is taking you to some tourist spot in China, is that they will always, at some point, take you to a factory of art and crafts. The idea is the factory will give the driver money for taking tourists to their store in the hope that foreigners will buy the goods that they are selling. Most of these places also have restaurant's attached so if you want food - they always recommend them for places to eat. They do a very similar thing in Thailand, where tuk tuk drivers will drive you all over Bangkok, all day, for free, as long as they get to take you to at least 4 factories on the way to the destination you really want to go to. We were taken to a Jade making factory for our lunch. They had some great Jade statues and jewelry of all shapes and sizes, but I didn't really need anything made of Jade to be honest, so we ate and left.

After we headed another 30km on, to the site considered a wonder of the man-made world. The section we were heading to was called Badaling but the whole piece of pure human achievement is known simply as - The Great Wall of China.

The Great Wall is a series of stone and earth fortifications, built, rebuilt and maintained between the 5th Century BC and the 16th Century, to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire. The Wall stretches along an arc, right across, from east to west of China, that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. Recent archaeological studies have concluded that the Great Wall of China, with all its branches, is 8,851.8km (5,500.3 miles) in length, which is approximately a few hundred miles longer than the distance from London, England to San Francisco in the United States. To say that this is a masterpiece of human engineering and a whole heap of pure hard work, might be considered an understatement.

The Badaling section, where we were heading to, is undoubtedly the most visited part of the wall, but there is a reason for that. The wall is well preserved here, and more importantly there is easy access to this section. You can climb up to the wall if your fit / mad enough but in the sweltering heat of Northern China that day, it was never going to happen. Instead you can take a cable car to the top. The ride only takes a few minutes, and as you step out you get the most immense view. High up in the mountains, your eyes are caught by the misty endless orogeny, and rural lands of this vast country, and spiralling around the mountain terrain, a sleek wall slithers across and around the hill-side like a snake.

Up on the wall, we were greeted by hundreds of tourists (most Chinese) who wanted to see this incredible piece of Chinese history and say they have stood on the longest wall in the world. It was hard work walking the wall. You have to remember that it follows the mountain-side, so most of it is steeply inclined. Most people were struggling with the heat and would often hide away from the sun’s rays by resting in one of the many watch towers which appear every so often along the walls profile. As you looked out over Northern China, you could see the wall flowing up and around the mountains before disappearing into the mist, and at that point it was easy to understand how many believe it to be a wonder of the man-made world. Whether it is myth or fact, there is a rumour that you can see the Great Wall from space, but no-one has ever really resolved this long-standing dispute. After a time (and many photo’s) we headed back down.

Before returning back to the hotel, our driver took us to a Chinese tea ceremony, where they explain to you all the different types of tea drunk in China (there are thousands) and the medicinal benefits of each. We got to try a few, as well as learnt how to drink them properly, by holding your cup in a certain way depending if you were male or female and how to slurp as loudly as possible (it’s polite to slurp). We were also shown a whole host of different equipment for making and drinking the tea before being asked to look around their shop for purchasing. It was an interesting experience.

It had been a long day but Harriet and I were not quite finished there. We asked our driver to instead drop us off a few minutes walk from our hotel at a famous landmark in Beijing and China alike. It was Tiananmen Square. The square is a large public area, which holds great cultural significance, forming the site of several key events in Chinese history, the most notable in 1989 when a pro-democracy movement in China saw thousands of protesters amass in the square. Hundreds of the protestors were killed by government troops. Not long before we arrived in China, the people again gathered in the square to mark the 20 year anniversary of that tragic but important event. Even today, Harriet and I, like all others wishing to enter the public area must proceed through a strict security check first.

Tiananmen Square is huge. It’s the largest city square in the world. Most of it is pretty sparse although surrounding the area are numerous government buildings, and on one side is the wall to part of the Forbidden City, where Harriet and I were heading the following day. There was a relatively large group of people gathered to one end of the square although we weren’t exactly sure why they were there – it appeared to be some sort of military parade but the significance was lost on us, so we returned back to our hotel.

The following day was going to be another jam packed viewing of China’s most treasured arenas. We had booked an organised tour to see three famous and ancient landmarks around Beijing. The only other two people on our tour besides us were two friends, one American and the other Australian who we got to know well throughout the day.

Our first stop was in the heart of Beijing, at the Forbidden City. It is a Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty, but is essentially large enough to be classified as a city within a city, with its southern gate extending out to Tiananmen Square. For five Centuries it served as a home to the Emperor and his household. The walled city consists of 980 surviving buildings and 8707 bays of rooms, with a building design that typifies Chinese palatial architecture. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, listed as the largest collection of preserved wooden structures in the world as well as the world’s largest surviving palace complex.

We took a walk around the city and within many of the rooms and buildings with our helpful guide, who would explain the life of an Emperor and what each building in the city was used for. The area is now under charge by the Palace Museum and they have an extensive collection of artifacts and artwork to view. We also took a stroll around the gardens where the Emperors many hundreds of wives would play. They had trees in the garden, marked to show that they were over 300 years old. It is a remarkable place.

By now it was becoming quite common for the locals to come up to us and ask for mine and Harriet’s photo. I remember having this continually in Indonesia and it was the same here in China too. We must have looked so different (especially Harriet who is very tall and has bright blonde hair) that they had just never seen anyone like us before and wanted a picture to show all their mates. We felt like a bit of a celebrity but by now were used to this sudden influx of stardom.

We next headed off to the Temple of Heaven. Set around the most beautiful parkland, the Temple of Heaven is a complex of Taoist buildings, which once, were visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven, generally for good harvest. The main temple is a large circular building because the Heaven was represented by a circle, the Earth by a square. Naturally a world heritage site, it was given the honour in 1998 for being a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design. The garden or parkland around it is 2.73 squared kilometers, larger than the entire Forbidden City, and apparently most locals come to this peaceful place for exercising. I found the whole area particularly tranquil. The track that leads through the parkland towards the temple has a white painted line running through it, which then skates off into the distance. It apparently marked the track for athletes, running in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. We took a slow stroll through the area before continuing on.

Our final stop was the Summer Palace. Located northwest of Beijing's center, the Summer Palace isn’t actually famous for being a palace but instead is dominated by Longevity Hill, standing 60m tall, and the 2.9 square kilometer, man-made - Kunming Lake. The whole area is very picturesque with a variety of palaces, gardens and other Chinese styled architectural structures dotted around the lakes shores.

In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List (why not), declaring it "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design”. We took a boat across the lake to some of the palace complexes. Along the side of the lake there is also a wooden covered walkway known as the ‘Long Corridor’. Fitting to its name, it stretches for 728m. It was built in the 18th Century and has rich painted decorations (more than 14,000 paintings) all along its ceiling – each completely different as well as detailing parts of Chinese history.

Naturally throughout our day, in between all the palaces and temples, we also had time to stop off at a silk factory, where they showed us how to make silk, starting from the silk worm, all the way through the production line to creating a perfectly smooth duvet. We spent some time in a pearl factory too, where they took out pearls straight from the Oyster shell and explained to us how to tell if a pearl is real or fake. We went to another tea ceremony (Harriet and I were pros by this point), where I actually bought some tea this time round and also a ‘pee pee boy’, which is a small boy sculpture that pees if you pour boiling water onto his head and thus know that the water is ready, i.e. hot enough for your tea. Fitting in all that, with a stop at a restaurant for lunch, and it was one hectic day.

Before leaving Beijing there was one thing that I hadn’t done which I still very much wanted to do in this city. It was dinner time and I hadn’t yet eaten Peking duck. Beijing (which used to be called Peking) is the home of this dish and I love it. The two other girls on our tour also wanted to try Peking duck here so the four of us went together. Our guide dropped us off at this very famous duck restaurant which is very popular with the locals. You had to get a ticket and then wait outside, before getting called to your table. Inside there were no other tourists, so we knew this was the place to be. As you walk in, before the seating area, there is a glass window which looks out onto the kitchen. From the window you can see all the ducks racked up and cooking. We didn’t really know what we were ordering and no-one really spoke English, but a duck turned up for us. They bring it whole to your table and then a chef looking bloke cuts it up for you there and then. You get a lot of meat and pretty much every piece of the duck too. It was very similar to back home – with the pancake rolls and hoi-sin sauce…..delicious. The restaurant is also famous, because every time someone orders a duck, the table is given a certificate with the number of your duck. Since the restaurant opened, they have counted how many ducks they have gone through and then put that number on a certificate for customers. The certificate also says how much the bird weighed – very odd. I can’t remember exactly, but I’m sure our bird was in the seven or eight hundred thousands!!! Sue, the Australian girl, grabbed the certificate and claimed it for herself before anyone really had the chance to view it.

After an enjoyable meal, we said our goodbyes to our newly made friends, retrieved our bags and headed for the train station. I really enjoyed Beijing. It’s different from Shanghai. It’s a real fuse of old and new China. Ancient buildings would be seated next to modern structures. Roads here are wide compared to Shanghai and it doesn’t seem as crowded although there are still a lot of people. I would definitely like to return one day to explore a bit more, but for now we were off on another sleeper train.

Our next destination used to be the capital of China at one time, and in 1974 some local farmers made one of the biggest archaeological discoveries the world has ever seen, there. The discovery was some ten thousand terracotta army soldiers and the place they discovered them – was Xi’an…………