Beijing

The flights were horrible from Delhi to Beijing. We had a 5 hour flight, an 18 hour stop over in Bangkok airport, then a 5 hour flight to Beijing. It was a bit shitty...literally as we all had upset stomachs leaving Delhi. Bangkok airport is great though, and we found some sofas to sleep on.

We arrived in Beijing and immediately got offered a taxi. We haggled him down from like 50 pounds to 12 pounds. We realised as he walked us to the car park that we should have just gone to the taxi rank instead of getting in this plain car. The ride was fine though, luckily.

Beijing was foggy. Well it looked foggy but its all the smog apparently. It made it very atmospheric driving into the city. It was also cold, which felt awesome. I never thought I would enjoy putting on a pair of trousers so much. The first thing I did at the hostel was to have a shower. Man, I have missed hot showers a lot. It felt so good, and I could literally feel the dust and dirt of India washing away.

We ended up staying 2 weeks instead of the 4 days we originally booked. You don't need 2 weeks to see Beijing (although there is a lot to do) but we had a lot of time just doing nothing in the hostel. We all loved the hostel. The staff were amazing, the bar area was very cool and they had a program which streams films, even ones that are still in the cinema, and in good quality as well. We spent a lot of time just sitting around in the bar watching films or sitting on the internet. The internet is a bit annoying, it's hard to get onto facebook because of the great firewall of China but when the government aren't blocking the site you want it works well. We met a guy called Shaun from Singapore who lives in the hostel and works as a photographer near by. He was a hero and we spent a lot of time with him.

When we actually did venture out there is loads to do, we didn't even do it all. We went to the zoo and saw some pandas (thats a first for me I think). Loved them. All the lions and tigers were in their small cages for the night and you could get so close to them, that was very impressive. Alex took a picture of a lion and sent it into the national geographic who posted it on their website. If voted for enough it gets published in the magazine (I think it may have finished by now but heres the link http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/daily-dozen I think its November week 1 or 2).

We did see all the classic sites as well, like Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, The Lama Temple. I wasn't too impressed with Tiananmen Square, I expected it to be bigger for some reason. I can't believe it can fit 1 million people in it. It was there we experienced our first "tea scam" where Chinese ladies pretend to be students and chat to you eventually inviting you to get some tea with them from a teahouse. Once there they charge you a fortune and rip you off. It was pretty convincing, good job we knew about it before hand unlike our friends Briege and Gary who fell for it. The Forbidden City was interesting, but very busy. We probably would have benefitted from an audio guide but we are travelling so we don't get things like that! There is a hill nearby made from the earth dug out when the moat was made, which has great views over the Forbidden City and was probably better for us. We did the Lama Temple later on in the second week. It had a huuuuge statue of Buddha (although we have been promised bigger later on in China) and lots of incense burning. The Summer Palace is in a huge park which is more impressive than the palace, and is good to walk around.

We went to a few museums, well I went to the National Museum, Chairman Mao's Mausoleum and the Natural History Museum alone (Geek) and we all went to the Military Museum. The Natural History Museum is pretty lame, with just a few big dinosaurs to keep you entertained, and the National Museum of China is only great because the Soviet style building it's in is awesome. Chairman Mao's Mausoleum isn't really a museum, you get ushered through very quickly (and shoved along if you stop like I did) by the guards and it's just a quick glimpse of his body. The Military Museum is massive, and has a lot of exhibits (if you like guns). The highlights were probably the flame thrower, the flame thrower tank, the rocket launchers and the heavy machine guns.

Probably one of the best things we did in Beijing was going to the 798 Art District. If you go to Beijing make sure you go there. It is a lot of old abandoned factories which artists moved into for the cheap rent. As with most places it became cool, so became expensive and now has lots of fancy galleries. It's just a very cool place to wander around. There are crazy sculptures everywhere along the streets (google image search it) and lots of free galleries. The galleries have lots of great work (and I don't even like art). The shops were selling lots of weird tat, which if I was just on holiday I would have bought a lot of. Unfortunately living out of a bag for 18 months doesn't let me buy tat.

We went on a couple of nights out in Beijing with Shaun and these 2 guys we met from Chile. One of them lives in Shanghai selling custom vintage bycycles so we may be able to meet up and get a free guide round the city there. The nightlife is good. There is 1 Hutang (I think it just means alleyway) which had lots of bars on. The Vampire themed bar was a lot of fun. All the drinks are just named after a blood type and served in fake syringes. All the furniture is Vampire-Chique (my favourite type of chique).

The "greatest" thing we did whilst in Beijing though was go to The Great Wall. Infact, it's my highlight of travelling so far. We went to a section called Mutianyu (I think) which I would recommend to anybody doing it. We headed up in a cable car to one of the watch towers (nice and relaxing) with 3 hours to do the wall. We did the 4 watchtowers to our right first which were an older section of the wall and very very steep. That only took about 40 minutes so then we went left and did the 15 or so watch towers there. For a change it was a really clear day with a bright blue sky and the views were just spectacular, I loved it. The steps could be a little steep at times but I don't really mind that (though Alex was a bit miffed at one point). Instead of going down on the cable car you can go down on the steel taboggan which takes you down right back to the entrance. That thing is great. It puts the one in Llandudno to shame. It takes about 3 minutes and you can get some real speed up on it (if you ignore the Chinese people with megaphones shouting at you to slow down). I got stuck behind some American woman (women drivers) half way down so it was a bit stop start but still...lotta fun. Big thanks to Briege and Gary for recommending that to us.

On a more somber point I felt a bit homesick occasionally (I think doing nothing gives you time to think about what you are actually doing travelling around the world). I would have liked to sit down and have the Sunday roast that my family told me they were having whilst I was on Skype with them. I would have liked to have been in England for Bonfire night and I am missing the Christmas build up.

So we loved Beijing, it's a great city and we were all a bit sad to leave. It felt like we were going on holiday, we had got to know the staff and Shaun at Sunrise hostel pretty well. I think Ant especially could have stayed there for months and months. We headed to Pingyao next but I will leave that for another update.

Reflections on India

Part One

I can't remember where I was up to on the blog and I can't get onto it in China to check. I think we had just left Varkala, so lets go from there.

Pondicherry is a town that used to be a French colony so it is supposed to have a different feel to the rest of India. It isn't exactly a district of Paris but the promenade is really nice along the sea front. It still has the standard Indian feel, with cows roaming the streets and that unfinished feeling to all the buildings. The town is very religious, belonging to some weird sect set up by someone called “the mother”. That kind of gave the town a weird feeling, but definitely not French.

It was Ants 25th Birthday so we bought party hats and a cake for the room. Alex, Briege, Gary went out to get the cake and in true Indian style when Ant asked the reception desk where they had gone he just replied “to buy your cake”. Good one. We had a few beers in the room then went out for a steak meal (one of the only places you can get it in India) which was amazing.

The highlight of Pondicherry was getting invited to an Indian wedding. Gary didn't like it because we got invited because we were white but the rest of us didn't mind. A french lady dressed in Indian garb (who lives in India doing the casting for The Life of Pi film) invited us, so we said yes.

The wedding was great. The sitting around was a bit boring but then we got a free meal which was awesome. The brother of the groom came over and asked if we wanted any alcohol. Because no-one else at the wedding would be drinking he sent someone out to get wine and whisky and took us all into a store room behind the kitchen to have sneaky drinks. The best bit was the dancing though. They dance like madmen. I got some great videos. No girls were dancing because they aren't allowed to dance infront of other men.

From Pondicherry we went to Hampi, probably the highlight of India. Its a fantastic place, a boulder-strewn landscape littered with temples. The temples seem so ancient, but are only 500 years old. India just don't look after things. The place is like the set of the flintstones movie, or jurassic park, or any other fantastical place. I'd recommend it.

We spent our days here wandering around the temples and relaxing. There is no alcohol or meat allowed inside of the town of Hampi, so its not exactly a happening place. One of the highlights was a walk to a waterfall. It was a bit risky in places, jumping over boulders across fast flowing rivers, but well worth it. We had got a bit lost but stumbled across a “meditation centre” full of half naked middle aged Germans. They showed us the way and a good spot to swim. That was a great day.

We got the train back up to Delhi where we got drunk with a group of guys who looked Chinese but were Indian and were absolute hero's. They made the 35 hour journey more bearable.

New Delhi was exactly that, new. They seemed to have cleared it up a bit, probably for the F1, and Diwali. It also helped the monsoon season was over so the streets were not so muddy.

We met up with Charlotte and Mcin who are in India for 2 weeks on holiday. It was great to see some familiar faces and also receive the care package they had brought from my parents (including my new camera and my kindle). We went to Connaught Place which is really nice compared to what we saw of Delhi the first time, and then the Red Fort.

The next day we went out to the Lotus Temple. Charlotte and Mcin had more bad things happen to them in 1 day than we have had in 2 months in India.

Firstly the metro was packed, and Charlotte ended up getting onto a carriage on her own, never a good move for a western girl. When she got off she was shaking after having an Indian guy rubbing his crotch up and down her leg the whole journey. Lovely. You should have stuck with us Charlotte!

At the Lotus Temple queueing to get in some guy tried to pickpocket Mcin but he caught him. He then had to sit in the Temple in silence whilst watching the man leave out of the other exit. That made him angry. To make things worse later on some guy tried the classic shit on the shoe scam. Its as simple as it sounds. A guy throws shit on your shoe without you noticing, then tries to charge you to wipe it off. Mcin had the lovely job of wiping it off himself with wet wipes.

I was a bit sad to leave Charlotte and Mcin, I got used to having them around again very quickly, but we were on our way to Beijing, so it was goodbye again.


Part 2

I'm not going to get pretentious talking about my “experience” in India and how spiritually developed I am or anything like that. But, India is a great place which everyone should visit. If you really can't handle the noise, dirt, poverty then you could go on tours to all the major tourist attractions, and still see lots of beautiful things. Seeing it all through the windows of your air conditioned bus and hotel is one way to do it. I would probably do that if I had children with me.

I don't think that the highlight of India was the Taj Mahal, or any other historic site, but the people (and the food). If they aren't trying to sell you something then they are great people. They are super inquisitive and friendly and will happily just talk to anybody. People who sit next to each other on a train chat like old friends, and everyone gets on with everybody else. It can grate on you a little bit, especially when feeling particularly reserved and British and just wanting to be left alone. However, most of the time its just really nice. In the little towns everyone knows everybody and they all muck in and help each other out with jobs. They have some great little communities. People in China won't speak English as well so I think I will miss that.

Onto Beijing next...