Tales from Two Cities - Beijing and Xi'an

So from the wide open spaces of Mongolia it was on to a country of 1.3 billion people, quite a lot of whom seem to be trying to push past you at any given moment....

Inside the Forbidden City

Despite being our first two stops in China there were almost 3 weeks between Beijing and Xi'an, as we timed our Mongolia leg to avoid the Chinese National Day Holiday chaos. This attempt was generally successful, although we did still manage to get a taste of what it is like when half of humanity decides to take a holiday in the same week...

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There are a lot of similarities between these two cities, particularly the fact that they both have a huge number of historical sights, including most of those that you first associate with China. As such, most of our time was spent either looking around (at varying speeds) or travelling to these sights and resulted in many, many photos being taken.

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The Temple of Heaven (the part which is not closed for renovations anyways)

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Anyways, Beijing was our first stop in China and was a pretty luxurious 5 days as Aimes' mum had kindly put us up in what will without doubt be our nicest accomodation for 6 months, in addition to providing us with a guide and driver for 3 days. The hotel was styled a la the Watergate, which we found really amusing at first until we discovered a dozen others designed the same way on our street alone - now that is hilarious.

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The first thing you notice in Beijing is that everything is BIG, be it the roads, the buildings, the sights and the crowds. The city really is in a construction boom at the moment, with cranes filling the skyline wherever you go and freaky architectural creations going up on every corner.

Are you sure it's only 1.3 billion people?

We had a good few days seeing the major sights including the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, Lamma Temple, and not to mention the Forbidden City (Aimes was beside herself with excitement when she first saw it - it's massive!). The only disappointment was that many of the sights are receiving "facelifts" ahead of the 2008 Olympics, which means lots of scaffolding, particularly at the Temple of Heaven unfortunately.

Do you think the car bombers are really going to take any notice?

The guide and driver have been pretty good, we were alternatively entertained by the driver singing 'Moon River' as we flew across the citie's numerous ring roads and our guide providing us with an insight into what it's like to be a party cadre these days (even if she wasn't meaning to). Our guide insisted on calling us Mason and Leanfore even though we corrected her on many occasions, by the end it started to have a bit of a ring to it! After relatively 'speedy' trips though the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace we realised we had to take control and slow the pace, which resulted in us dragging our heels and walking many metres behind the guide at the later sights (or in the case of the Great Wall ditching her at the halfway point).

Add a padlock and throw away the key for a long marraige!

We managed to steer clear of the Peking Opera and Chinese Acrobats tourist trail (despite repeated attempts to sign us up) but did get dumped by our guide at a jade jewellery/artefact factory and a tea shop. She seemed a little disappointed when she didn't recieve her kickback as we didn't buy anything (despite Hobbes being very tempted by the several thousand dollar jade cabhages!).

Apart from the major sights we also walked through the historic old alleys ('hutong') and shopped under the bright lights of the huge malls. It truely is a city of contrasts!

The Great Wall, complete with 6 lane expressway

On top of the wall

It was brilliant food wise, we had the obligatory Peking Duck, and lots of hand made noodles and dumplings. We also had our first local taste of Uigher Muslim meal with Nick (Clara's bro) and were entertained with Xianjiang girls dancing with snakes and bowls balanced on their head (not at the same time!). Catching up with a 'local' was great as Nick took us to his favourite foot massage place that offered 'complimentary' snacks, which we interpreted to be 'all you can eat' until they kicked us out. Eating while getting a massage seemed a little strange to start with, but we soon got used to the decadence!

So after a quick fire 5 days it was off to Mongolia, well it was off to Mongolia after a slight delay resulting from our driver taking us to the domestic terminal rather than the international terminal anyways (why would you want to go to OUTER Mongolia when there is a perfectly good INNER Mongolia within China??).

Calligrapher at the Summer Palace

On returning to Beijing from Mongolia we made the mistake of trying to buy our tickets from the main train station while half the country was trying to board a train to return home from the National Day Holiday. This was a lot of fun as we had all our bags with us at the time and had spent half the day travelling. If nothing else it was a good oppotunity to hone the pushing and shoving skills we will no doubt need throughout our trip!

Another mistake was made in attempting to take the subway to the City West Station during peak hour although somehow we managed to keep breathing amid the crush and were even able to get both ouselves and our bags off at the right stop! Our first long distance train trip was relatively painless, 12 hours but all over night, the only problem being that the old men in our compartment had beers and we didn't - tricks for young players!

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The Muslim Quarter of Xi'an

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Despite also being a huge city, Xi'an definitely has a much more relaxed feel than Beijing (if only within the old city walls). The streets are relatively narrow and tree lined and people seem to get about at a much more sedate pace. It is also extremely smoggy, seeming as though the whole town and surrounds is constantly within a heavy fog (if only!).

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Xi'an's Drum Tower by night

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The main reason to come to Xi'an is to see the Army of Terracotta Warriors, though there are a number of other sights in the surrounding area. We took a bus around to a number of these sights including the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang (whom 'the warriors' are guarding and which appears to be nothing more than a UNESCO listed mound of dirt) and Huaquing Pool (Tang dynasty thermal pool resort), although none of these were anywhere near as impressive as the 'warriors'. Despite the construction of a massive tourist complex around the location of the Terracotta Warriors, they remain an amazing sight, even more so when you consider that only a small part has yet been excavated.

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Part of the Army of Terracotta Warriors

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One of the most surprising sights in Xi'an was the number of "adult" shops lining the main street near our hotel and the numerous brothels (or is that "hairdressers" with pink lighting) all over town - I always thought the Chinese were conservative?? This was closely followed by surprising sight of a HUGE dog grooming parlour - you don't want no scraggy dogs.

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Huaquing Pool outside Xi'an

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But for Hobbes the highlight of Xi'an was the fried chicken sticks being sold on just about every corner for all of 2 yuan (35 cents). In fact there was heaps of good street food in Xi'an, chou dofu (smelly tofu), vegie bugers (pick your veges and have them deep fried, served with in a deep fired bun!), squid sticks, and muslim bread and meats. Nothing better at the end of a hard days walking than some fried food and beer!

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Sampling Xi'an's mulsim food

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One of the main attractions of Xi'an is the fact that it marks the beginning (or is that the end) of the Chinese part of the ancient Silk Road. To mark this fact there is a massive museum displaying what must be several thousand artifacts which have been discovered along this route. Considering that the next month or so of our trip would be following the remainder of the Silk Road through Xinjiang and Gansu, we put our walking shoes on and spent a few hours checking it out.

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While in Xi'an we also hired bikes to ride around the 'restored' city wall, the completion of which was recently completed with several large arches in front of the train station. This was a good way to see most of the city and was pretty peaceful (perhaps due to the exorbitant fee you have to pay?).

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Restaurant in the Muslim Quarter

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From Xi'an it was on to Urumqi in China's western most province Xinjiang. For this leg we decided to fly rather than attempt the 56 hour train trip - we both think this was a good decision :)