Upon arriving in Beijing we were greeted by the cold. We had expected it to be cold in China, but having come from 32 celsius Goa made it seem even colder with day time high temperatures of 0 celsius. Everywhere we went in Beijing there was still snow on the ground which looked very old. We could only assume that the day time temperature hadn't been high enough to melt snow since before there winter. Strangely enough this is actually Chinese Spring. Luckily we still had our thick jackets. Unfortunately we also contracted some form of food or water posioning either just before leaving Goa or when entering China. This was the most ill either of us have ever been from stomach poisoning. Being in China meant we were unable to get hold of the usual medicines prescribed to help and so we had to take some dodgy local remedies. Even suffering from pain equal to a knife wound in the stomach and semi-uncontrollable bowls didn't stop us from seeing almost everything that we wanted to see in Beijing and Xi'an. We were just lucky to of caught it while we had a few days stationary to get over the worst of the illness. China is a relatively strange place as its very developed, but also very very dirty. It's acceptable in China to clear you nose by snorting it into your throat and then spitting the mucus onto the street. I made the mistake in Beijing of putting my bag down only to have someone's greeny stuck to the bottom. The people also deem it acceptable for people to just drop their pants and piss in the middle of the pavement. They don't even think to piss on the side; they just stop right in the middle. They do this even though there is a public toilet sign right above their head. You just don't expect it in such a developed country.
The Summer Palace
The summer palace was located on the very outskirts of the metro in Beijing. We almost didn't even find it as it's about a one mile walk from the metro station and is not signposted at all.
It is only because we persevered that we found it in the end. We were definitely glad to have of persevered as we both agree that the summer palace was far better than both the Forbidden
City & Tiananmen Square. It is amazing to think of how many people skip the summer palace or assume that it won't be very nice winter. I would strongly urge anyone visiting Beijing to view
the summer palace. The summer palace is made up of a large complex of structures and paths and it is much better to stroll through the random paths; this way you avoid the large crowds. The
entrance sign said that they expected 12,000 visitors on the day we visited and although knowing China this is most likely an overestimation it is still better to take the less well trodden
path. It was very picturesque walking around the palace grounds as the lake was frozen solid and there was snow cover on most of the grass, trees and roof tops. It would easily take most of
a day to walk around all of the palace grounds. You can easily see everything worth seeing without too much repetition in about three hours though. If you go in winter / spring I strongly
recommend buying some hot chocolate to hold to keep your hands and body warm as the entire palace grounds are outside.
The Forbidden City & Tiananmen Square
The first two photos below show some authentic food in Beijing and the way alcohol is sold in the super markets. You can find spirits ranging right up to 80% proof for only
£5 for 3 litres. God knows what it is or what it contains. The very last photo shows Tiananmen Square. There isn't really too many photos since it was very cold and honestly
it was so busy there were hardly any photo shots justifying losing a finger over. We also spent relatively little time on the Square itself as we both just wanted to head
to the silk market to sit down have a drink and warm up. The forbidden city is definately worth seeing it's just not one of those places that you can ever get good photos.
Since Tiananmen Square is opposite the Forbidden City we stopped there briefly but it is pretty uneventful these days since it is heavily policed from every single angle.
It was however easy to see how it was a great site for protests. It reminds me a lot of revolution square in Havana.
The Great Wall
We were originally supposed to do a full day tour of the Great wall from our hostel. However neither of us were well enough on the day to go. We were gutted and
tried to reschedule for the next day, unfortunately we later realised that we couldn't do that as we wouldn't be back until 16:30 and we had a train at 17:38
which we would've never made. So in the end we fell back on our original plan to do it ourselves. Unfortunately when we got to the bus station the bus was not
running because of ice on the road. We were both gutted at this point, but we were soon approached by a local offering us a private car to see the wall. This was
too expensive for us split two ways, but after about 10 minutes of asking people we managed to find a couple from Shanghai who would join us in order to split the
cost of the vehicle four ways. This was great news as this would've been our last chance to see the great wall of china. Needless to say the day was interesting
seeing how they spoke limited english and we spoke limited chinese. Fortunately though they had an iPhone app which translated Chinese into English. This enabled
us to get through the day and learn lots about them. We couldn't have wished for a better trip to see the great wall. It was like a private custom tour and the
wall was deserted as no buses were running. This along with the the walls back drop of snow-capped hills and trees made for a great day. It also only cost us
about half of what the tour offered by our hostel would've cost. The irony being that our hostel had booked our train ticket for the wrong day and so we had to
spend an extra day in Beijing and could've done the great wall tour anyway. We were obviously not exactly pleased by this, luckily we managed to get a refund on
the train tickets and had only wasted 5 hours or so getting to the train station and back. That evening we booked a flight to Xi'an the next morning.
Due to the hostel screwing up our train booking we had essentially lost a day of time in Xi'an. Luckily for us the weather was miserable and all it did in Xi'an was rain. This combined with us finding out that everything we were going to do was an absolute rip off made us limit what we did in Xi'an to just not be missed things "The Terracotta Warriors / Army". At the airport on the way out I almost had a guy spit on my hand. I was trying to recycle and the guy was stood by the bin, he looked confused like he was trying to figure out whether to recycle his rubbish or not. So I reached around and throw my rubbish into the recycling bin, at the same moment he must've decided that snot was recyclable and spat into the bin lucky I was like lighting and avoided it. Next we flew down to Guilin in Southern China.
Upon arriving in Guilin we simply spent the night before getting a bus across to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is a beautiful place located in Southern China on the Li River. It is surrounded
by many peaks much like those that can be seen in Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. It kind of has the seaside town feel. On the day we arrived in Yangshuo it was very very hot and humid, but
strangley enough by the next day it was trousers, fleece and jacket weather.
On our first full day in Yangshuo we decided to go and see the Longji Rice Terraces. On the way we got offered to stop and see the Huangluo Yao (Long Haired) Village. This was not
at all what we were told or expected. It is what one could expect in China. They had built a stage for the villagers to present themselves and dance. It was very much like a school
nativity performance. We had expected our small group to sit down and talk while sharing tea with them. If you every find yourself in Yangshuo or Guilin I would advise you to skip
this. I am sure there are much more authentic tribal experiences in China. Next we continued on to the rice terraces where we had a brief stop for bamboo rice. This is rice which
is placed into an intact bamboo shoot and then the bamboo shoot is cooked over open fire. The rice develops a unique flavour and is surprisingly cooked to perfection.
The next day we headed back to Guilin in order to be there for the chinese new year as a lot of stuff was beginning to close in Yangshuo and we wanted to make sure we would be able
to make our flight to Chiang Mai which was soon approaching. Upon arriving back in Guilin we witnessed the the new year celebrations. It was quite simply like being in a war zone.
Firecrackers go off like machine gun fire in the streets while people randomly throw individual packages of nitro-glycerine on the floor which resembles the sound of landmines. This
is compounded with large square boxes fire bright lights into the sky like army flares and screamer rockets which sound like mortar rounds overhead. They stop letting off fireworks
at 5am in the morning and resume again at 6am until 5am the next morning. Needless to say that 3 days of this was more than enough. Next we got on a flight to Chiang Mai, Northern
Thailand.
From Guilin we left China on a flight to Chiang Mai where we were to start our Golden Triangle circuit.
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