Beijing | Eventually Almost Everywhere

Tuesday 7th August

An early start to beat the Beijing rush hour. I’ve booked myself onto a bus tour of the area north of the city, including a visit to the famous Great Wall. First though, we stop at the Ming dynasty tomb at Dingling. Inside the burial chambers, which are dug deep into a wooded mountainside, the tombs themselves are somewhat less impressive than the stone thrones for the emperor and empresses. It turns out that the entire excavation was ransacked by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. The relics from the site were left to spoil, and the skeletons of the emperor and empress were removed and burned. Since then, plans to excavate other, grander tombs have been put on hold.

Then on to Mutianyu, a strategically-located mountain pass 70km north of Beijing. There we eat lunch at a rather touristy restaurant boasting the full range of lazy Susans and sweet and sour pork intestines. I get a chance to meet the rest of the group properly: Roger, Alfredo and Africa from Barcelona and Franz and Barbara, a couple from Basel who have spent the past four weeks in outer Mongolia, and have a fortnight left in China! I ask whether this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip and they look shocked – apparently they do this sort of thing every year.

Anyway, afterwards we board the cable car through the forest canopy and up to the wall. Approaching from below, it is a truly impressive spectacle, stretching for further than the eye can see along the skyline. Any Mongol hordes approaching from the north wouldn’t have stood a chance. The humidity is stifling and even the flatter sections feel like a fair hike. The climb up to the Chinese flag at the end of the main restored section proves a struggle for many, and the hawkers who have somehow raised a fridge up there are getting good business from selling water at 30 Yuan a bottle. The physical reality of the Great Wall is breath-taking, but even more so is the thought of the power of spirit than surrounded its construction. Over hundreds of years, for hundreds of miles and in the most inhospitable of locations, walls like this were built, restored and maintained, all by hand, and they endure to this day. Truly awe-inspiring.

Wednesday 8th August

The temperature hits a high of 35 degrees around lunchtime today, so I decide a slightly quieter day is called for. I head for the picturesque Beihai Park behind the Forbidden City, where a white pagoda rises mole-like from the Jade Island in the middle of the central lake. The water is full of Beijingers on pedalos. I feel equally energetic by the time I get to the top of the island – the marvellous view over the lakes and the sprawling hutong is reward enough for the sweat pouring from my forehead. A group of four Chinese twenty-somethings ask me to join them in posing for a photograph, seemingly in each of the 32 possible configurations, but I am in distinctly no rush, and enjoy the chance to practise my Chinese. I feel it is embarassing that the hotel’s talking mynah bird knows more phrases than I do, but it is improving. Mindful of meeting the Cambridge group tomorrow to travel south to Linyi, I spend the hottest hours of the day resting and doing some preparation work for my lecture course. The Guizhou restaurant I chosen for my final dinner in Beijing turned out to have been closed, so I trusted pot luck, and found a place specialising in the cuisine of Xinjiang in the far northwest. Unexpectedly, the meal is accompanied by intermittent belly-dancers and a optimistically enthusiastic guitarist. The food is somewhat less louche, the house special dapanji is a spicy chicken casserole. It is always easy to exaggerate such things, but my ‘small portion’ genuinely would have fed a party of four and left room to spare. I barely make it past the rim of the bowl before declaring defeat and trudging back heavily laden through Dongzhimen.

Thursday 9th August

I squeeze in a quick trip to the Olympic Park before leaving Beijing. For the first time since arriving it is a brilliantly sunny morning, which is somewhat unfortunate since the park is an entirely exposed concrete esplanade. The Bird’s Nest stadium is very striking though, as you wander through the beams which are somehow both disarranged and artful. Opposite, beside the Water Cube, is the food tent – dumplings and noodles as far as the eye can see! I go for steamed pork versions, before a bizarre dessert that describes itself as fried ice cream.

Then it’s time to join the gang at Beijing Nanzhan. The plan to meet is slightly fraught as the station is absolutely enormous (comparable to the Forbidden City on the overhead map) and is the home to six KFC’s, the agreed rendezvous point. Eventually everyone makes it in time for the high speed train south. It’s refreshing to catch up with the familiar faces at 300 km/h. There are 18 of us, so a bus seating 15 is sent to pick us up from the nearest station for the two hour run into Linyi. Only the driver gets a seatbelt. I’m just glad to get a seat. Not that many places are open in Linyi at 9.30, so we end up with our guides at a corner diner in the centre of town. There is confusion about whether the bowl of warm soy milk that everyone receives is a starter, a soup or a dessert. Matters improve with an onion omelette and further dumplings. The accommodation at the university is exciting. My roommate David and I are surprised to find a water-cooler and a widescreen television, yet there are no cupboards, or any other furnishings. The previous occupants have left us a small gift: a string bag of garlic shoved down the back of the TV stand. We spend a slightly futile twenty minutes attempting to swat mosquitos before turning in.

Saturday 4th August

Painfully early start to Heathrow for the start of this Far Eastern mathematical adventure. In the cause of economy, I’m flying on Finnair with a six hour stop in Helsinki. At this point I should mention how grateful we all are for the generous donation from an anonymous Hong Kong businessman which means this part of the trip has been covered. It turns out to be entirely possible to slip into the town centre for a few hours, rather than stay confined in the clean but rather sterile Finnish airport. The weather is beautiful, with not a cloud in the sky as I stop for freshly grilled salmon on the harbourside then wander round the stylish waterfront shops, the two cathedrals and a sprawling park with a stunning greenhouse complex at its centre. The now scorching conditions do nothing to deter the legions of stallholders attempting to shift arctic fox stoles and reindeer fur throws. I return on the regular airport shuttle bus and head for the gate, albeit two hours early, but unbelievably there is an almost infinite supply of flat sofa-chairs, so I can settle down with Fifty Shades of Grey inconspicuously stored on my Kindle. In many ways, Finland has been an excellent, if brief, preparation for China. Firstly, the language is completely unintelligible. Secondly, I stand out like a black sheep amongst the perfect Nordic specimens, at least until the rest of the passengers turn up for my Asian flight. On the other hand, the price of everything here is absurd. Nothing plausible for lunch comes to less than 10 Euros. I’m informed that might well supply several three-course dinners in Beijing… In any case though, my stay here is short, and I’m on the evening flight East.

Sunday 5th August

I get some sleep leaning against the bulkhead, but am still disastrously tired as I yawn my way through border control at 6am Beijing time. I can’t quite face rush hour right now, so have a snooze in the arrivals lounge before making my way across town. I realise I am being royally ripped off by a taxi driver, who refuses to turn on the meter, but I fail to be demanding enough at the appropriate moment. I think he realises that I realise, and looks suitably sheepish, so I only pay a quarter and he seems happy enough. My room contains a bed, which right now is all I want. After a nap, I catch up on some of the Olympics on Chinese TV while I sort my life out. Evidently I missed the British Gold rush, but unfortunately since none of the remarkable medal haul lay in table tennis or badminton, it’s hard to find any relevant highlights. Later, I head out for a stroll through North-East Beijing. It doesn’t take too long to get used to the humidity and the traffic. I’d been apprehensive about the logistics of crossing the road, when right turns are allowed at all times, but as in Vietnam, it seems that if you just keep going at constant velocity the mopeds will swerve around you. I end up at Gui Jie, the ‘Ghost Street’, and location of hundreds of neon-lit, red-lanterned restaurants facades. Amid the imprenetable character displays, I pick one at random. My phrasebook Chinese and frantic gesticulation on both sides is enough to produce a beer and a serving of the Sichuan speciality, Gongbao chicken, with a worrying mountain of chillis and peppercorns piled in a corner. I proceed with caution.

Monday 6th August

Breakfast is a further adventure. I’ve been a massive fan of the jiaozi dumplings at Dojo in Cambridge for ages, and something similar appears here – a bit odd at 8am. Truly odd, however, are the thousand-year eggs, which are pickled raw in mud (thankfully for only two weeks or so) until the yolk turns a dark green-black and the whole thing carries an aroma of the stable. I’m sure they are an acquired taste. I have not acquired this taste yet. On the other hand, the selection of exotic fruit is excellent, and I always approve of plenty of fish in the morning.

Thus fortified, I descend into the efficient underground realm of the Beijing metro to make my way to Tiananmen Square. It is grey but enormous. Even with thousands of visitors you still feel isolated. I wander round Mao’s Mausoleum, but the queue deters me from paying my respects up close. Instead, across the small moat, and under his famous portrait which gazes down on visitors entering the South Gate of the Forbidden City. The crowd meanders through the collection of gates, hall and palaces that make up the residence of the two dynasties worth of emperors and their extensive entourages. Everywhere there is red and blue, and the copper of the elegant roofs. Some of the most interesting sights are to be found in the less grand arcades and more intimate quarters ranging around the gardens at the back of the complex. In many ways the life of the Emperor doesn’t sound all that fun. From as young as three years old, they had a daily schedule of rituals, sacrifices and administrative meetings, with only the court officials and the intriguing eunuchs who guarded the concubines for company. The best bit in a way was the view from the top of the Coal Hill Park opposite, looking down through the lingering mist (or possibly smog…) at the intricate layers that made up the fascinating enclosed city.

One of the more surprising aspects of today’s sightseeing was how few international tourists there are here. The overwhelming majority of the enthusiastic camera-pointers were Chinese. It felt nice, and a pleasant novelty after the likes of Rome and Istanbul to be with the locals even during the most stereotypical of tourist activities. Dinner tonight was much more of a success. On a terrace by the Houhai lake, a picture menu made life much easier, and I enjoyed my whole roasted duck Sichuan-style, even after the disconcerting moment where I discovered the charred remains of what had once evidently been the head, lurking under a pile of peppercorns.