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!
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