Beijing Round One: 28/June - 05/July
After an uneventful train ride from Hong Kong, we disembarked at Beijing’s West Railway Station. Beijing in the spring and fall months is a brisk, dry, dusty city of improbably blue skies and sudden playful breezes. Beijing in July is a 20-million-person slum languishing under a sky the colour and density of a rotting leviathan; the incredible pollution permeates every single drop of the intense humidity, coating buildings, bridges, landmarks, and skin in a gritty layer of toxic residue. Nothing is dry. Nothing is clean. Everything is sweating.
We swam through the damp, ugly masses of pollution and people outside the imposing train station and made our way to the subway system, and from there to Chegongzhuang station. Walking down the road to our hostel, we found ourselves behind 3 westerners walking in the same direction. They all three of them were wearing what appeared from the back to be band t-shirts, with long shorts, sandals, and long, long hair completing the uniform. We decided they were either vikings or American. We were sort of hoping for vikings. They were, of course, American (vikings not being known for inland travel - or sandals) and were also staying at our hostel, which, as we ended up there so often, and loved so much, I will attempt to describe here.
INNer City Hostel is [Editing Note: was, actually. Tragically it no longer exists] a small, student run backpacking hostel tucked away in a working class neighbourhood bordered on the east by historic and touristy central Beijing and on the west by the upscale and ‘westerner-friendly’ financial district, between CheGongzhuang and Ping'Anli metro stations. The hostel itself [was] a converted Siheyuan, a traditional Chinese style of home comprised of different buildings organised around a central courtyard, and is situated on a Hutong, a particular kind of small, crooked alley found in neighbourhoods of Siheyuans.
Anyway, the Americans turned out to be from (surprise!) San Francisco; a father, a son, and the son’s friend. Good people. Cannot remember their names.
That evening we went to Hou Hai, one of Beijing’s pub districts. ‘Hai’ is ‘lake’ in putonghua (mandarin), and the area is really just a long circuit of lake-front bars blaring music and neon out onto the waters of two small man-made lakes in a brassy attempt to lure in the crowds of pedestrians who come to people watch and bar-hop. After some wandering and prevaricating we ensconced ourselves on the outdoor sofa-seating of Bar 31, which proudly advertised the fact that it had shisha (true), cheap drinks (debatable), and ‘Hou Hai’s first Uighur Flamenco band’ (amazing). It was a good night, and after the sun sets the heat lets up and the darkness makes it easy to forget the masses of pollution hanging above and all around you. Pleasantly buzzed, energised by the Flamenco, and mildly oxygen-deprived from the shisha, we headed back to the hostel and ended our first night in the largest communist country on earth.
The next day was the Temple of Heaven, a title pleasantly incorrect in a city where you couldn’t see the sky and a country where religion was generally discouraged. Even cloaked in smog, though, it’s an impressive series of structures, and is, besides, surrounded by an expansive park. It was in the park on the way out that we happened upon on an elderly Chinese man with a red accordion, playing unmistakably 1930’s era Parisian songs while seated on a low stone platform. Sitting across from him was another local, younger and chubbier, nodding his head and frowning in agreement as he listened and occasionally tapped his foot in time with the tune. Seated a little way away from them was a girl about our age, probably a university student, judging by her fashionable clothing and high-quality camera. What ensued was one of only two instances in the trip where I truly wished I had my own camera, as there was a moment where PB was taking a photo of the accordion player and the girl was taking a photo of PB. Ships passing in the night, I guess.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in wandering around Beijing, largely in the wrong direction, again due to my terrible map-using skills. However, we accidentally found a bell tower, a restaurant with a very accommodating but overworked waitress, and some spheres and columns with interesting bas reliefs carved on them, so the afternoon wasn’t entirely lost. No, really.
The next day (June 30th, a Thursday) PB went to the Jinshanling Great Wall [Editing Note: He went alone because I'd been to Beijing twice before, and had trekked over Jinshanling on both occasions. Also, if you want to stay friends with the person you're travelling with, it's often a good idea to schedule a day apart here and there], while I tried to track down train tickets to get us to Mongolia in time for Nadaam and getting picked up by the horseback riding / tour company Stepperiders.
I had ballparked the price of these tickets to be somewhere around 500 yuan each one way, and dutifully set out to stand in line somewhere. This was not as easy as I hoped it would be, as the train station from which the train (the Trans-Siberian) actually left was not actually permitted to sell the tickets. I was instead directed to the International Ticket Office, which I eventually found on the ground floor of a large hotel a block or two away from the main station. Unfortunately, and to my dismay, the tickets from Beijing to Ulanbataar were priced at 1300-odd yuan each - one way! I decided to go do some equipment shopping instead, picking up such essentials as multivitamins, flashlights, and an equipment bag to replace one bag which hadn’t entirely survived the trip from Canada to China.
Later, at the hostel, PB and I asked our gracious hosts about how to get to Mongolia, and we were informed that we could probably take a train to the border town of Er Lian for about 400 yuan each, hire a jeep across, and take a Mongolian train up from there. We agreed this was a far more pleasing solution and spent the rest of the evening making dumplings and talking to the other guests, including a lady and her daughter from the state of Georgia, USA, who were heading to the Great Wall the next day, which was, funnily, both Canada Day and Chinese National Day. Either way, it’d be a good idea to wear red.
The next morning we attempted valiantly to enter and explore the Forbidden City. PB had it on good authority that the best and wisest way to go through was to enter through the north, which most people used as an exit. However, owing to a late start, and, I believe, making the rather foolhardy decision of walking from the front (Tiananmen Square metro stop, replete with out-sized screens broadcasting comforting images of stylized nature and happy cultural minorities) all the way around the city to the back, we didn’t actually end up going into the City that day.
I should note here that the Forbidden City is HUGE; calling it a city is not just hubris. Set aside a good 3 or 4 hours to wind your way through, and it's worth it to just gently meander through and take your time instead of going with a tour. There's interesting alcoves to either side of the 'main drag' that are worth visiting in their own right (I really like the bit with the not-quite-finished building. Dunno why, just found it really pleasant), and when it's sunny there's loads of benches in those areas that are perfect for lounging on. There's also a couple decent restaurants on the north side, near the exit. Basically it's worth it to take your time and make a day of it.
So, although we did indeed find the north entrance, complete with ticket counter and sign proclaiming pricing for entrance and audio guides, we opted against entering so late in the day and put it off for the next day. The rest of that afternoon, I think, was spent in Jingshan Park, famous for its hill which provides a good view of the Forbidden City, and a tree where one of the Emperors hanged himself to avoid the consequences of a rebellion brought about by famine and corruption.
We also got in some good loitering to top the day off, in Tiananmen Square of all places. We parked ourselves in front of the series of huge, fantastic TV displays and did some highly amusing people watching, particularly of the casual-looking police officers on segways, and the always popular "naked papa's" [bang ye](1) of Beijing - portly and generally middle aged men who tuck their t-shirts and tank tops up into their collars to expose their stomachs and lower back. Not sure if it made the heat any more bearable, but they're certainly cool in my book.
(1) They're so famous they got mentioned in a news story about Shanghai.
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