From Beijing to Pingyao

All good things must come to an end, it was time for us to leave Beijing. The fact that our next stop was Datong, one of China's ugliest and most polluted cities, didn't make us too excited about leaving. But we were not going to stay in Datong longer than was absolutely necessary.

We took a night train from Beijing to Datong, which was quite an experience. We got "hard sleeper" tickets, which meant three storey bunk-beds in an open carriage (as opposed to "soft sleepers" where you get a cabin with four sharing. Luckily we had the bottom bunks, and didn't have to climb to the hat-shelf-like top bunks. The fact that the Chinese smoke everywhere (and constantly) made breathing a bit hard, but otherwise we managed a decent night's sleep.

We arrived in Datong at dawn, and were immediately caught by the tour organisers. This fit nicely into our plan because we wanted to visit the Hanging Monastery and the Yungang Caves, and then take the night train to Pingyao, without staying in Datong for the night.

After a booking our tour and train tickets (and a nice breakfast in a nearby hotel) we were on our way to the Hanging Monastery. Well, to be honest the monastery doesn't really hang. It is actually propped up on a hillside with wooden poles. But the effect is pretty impressive, though. You can very easily imagine the whole thing collapsing at any minute.



As monasteries go (and by now we've seen a fair few already) this was a good one. It does seem that you find monasteries in the strangest places around here: in the middle of a desert, behind a rock that doesn't quite look like a turtle, or halfway up a steep hill. Having said that, I don't remember seeing any monasteries back home, maybe those ones are even better hidden?

The next stop was the Yungang Caves. These were the first caves we have seen so far, and it was a strong start. There are loads of caves in different shapes and sizes, some with Buddhas still inside, others looted.



After the caves we had to face Datong. As expected, it was not a highpoint of our trip. To be fair we only explored a couple of blocks of the city since Julie's digestive system had been somewhat boosted by spicy Chinese food, and we had to remain within a sprinting distance from the only decent toilets in the city.

After a long day we finally boarded on our train to Pingyao. This time we were in a hard sleeper with a middle and a top bunk, but by now this wasn't too bad; we were tired and beyond caring.

We are now in Pingyao, a lovely little town with an ancient city wall around it. There isn't so much to do, but just walking along the narrow streets and looking at the restaurants and shops is good fun.



We also seem to be heading deeper into the country and as there are less and less foreigners around we seem to have become tourist attractions ourselves. It is now impossible to go anywhere without the Chinese tourist groups shouting "Hello!" at you and snapping pictures. It's all good fun, though!

Tonight we are heading to Xi'an on another night train. This time we are in a hard sleeper carriage with two top bunk tickets. Oh well...

Photos from Beijing

I'm not quite sure what to write about Beijing, so I'll share some photos with you instead.

Oh, and I added some of Andy's photos from Mongolia in the post "Around Mongolia".

We made it to Beijing!

Yes, we made it! It's a fantastic place, too. Beijing seems to have everything: it's clean, people are friendly, it's modern and things work, it seems really safe, and yet it's still by far the cheapest place we've been to so far. The weather is also fantastic here at the moment (around 25 degrees) which is really nice after the freezing nights camping in Mongolia. And the food is a hundred times better, too!





We arrived here two days before China's National Day (1st October) when the whole nation takes a week of holiday. Plenty of people told us it's a crazy time to be travelling in China but we figured that if we had managed to book transport into China and accommodation in Beijing then it couldn't be too bad. It turns out (of course!) that they were right and we were wrong; it is absolute chaos around any tourist attraction (we tried to get to Tiananmen Square to see if there was anything happening on the 1st, but couldn't get near enough to tell!). But it's so nice here that we really don't mind taking it easy for a week and waiting for the tourist madness to die down a bit.



On our first day we went shopping and managed to find ourselves a new camera at quite a bargain price. After selling us the new one they told us they could mend the old one for around 50 euros, and true to their word, they did. So now we have two cameras! But the new one seems much better than the old one, so no harm done.



Yesterday, after our failed attempt to get to Tiananmen Square we spent some time in a nearby park (Beihai Park) and then went for a walk around the hutongs (narrow alleyways around the older traditional residential areas). There we found a massage place, and decided to go for it as we were quite tired from all the walking. We both took a half an hour back massage, and although it hurt like hell, I think that part of the experience was quite beneficial. But, stupid tourists that we are, we don't know when to stop. So when they offered us some traditional Chinese medicine, we thought "why not?" Famous last words...! Our backs were scraped with something which felt like a fine toothed comb until we were almost bleeding, and then rubbed with some kind of oitment. I stopped at this point but Mikko went one step further. They offered him the "cupping" treatment, which is apparently supposed to straighten your spine. At this point I'd like to say a special thank-you to my Mum and Dad for blessing me with a straight spine! So, they burn something inside glass cups so that it creates a vacuum and the cups stick to your skin and suck your skin inside the cups. Im still not sure how it's supposed to straighten the spine though, and the masseur "doctor" didn't have the English skills to explain. It wasn't very pretty to watch, but according to Mikko, it was not as painful as the scraping thing we both suffered. One day (and one sleepless night) later, we are still bruised, and feeling quite foolish! :-)



Today, we've had a more lazy day. We went to an impressive Lama temple and did some more walking around, trying to avoid any of the major tourist hotspots, and any centres of Chinese medicine, and stopping off regularly to refresh ourselves with a local Tsingtao beer. We're psyching ourselves up to getting up early tomorrow to check out the Summer palace. But another day of lazyness would suit me fine too!