Rich and Cat's Travels: China

So we arrived in our Beijing hostel which was a hutong and centred around a courtyard where there was a bar (where a big bottle of beer cost 30p), reception and a little stream which had hundreds of fish in it. Our room was on the first floor over looking the courtyard and the stream.

On the first day we explored the local area and tried our hand at ordering food in a Chinese restaurant. It didn’t go too badly and after a couple of plates of food, some beer and some green tea we paid the £6 bill feeling very full. However this exploration of the local area we got a true sense of the local driving and it was definitely different to the UK. We didn’t get run over but that was because we are quick and ran across some of the roads to avoid the many cars, buses, scooters and bikes. They come at you from all directions and there does not seem to be any sense to the traffic and one thing we learnt quickly was that the green man on the traffic lights does not mean you have right of way, traffic still does and it comes from everywhere, including alongside you on the crossing if it is a scooter or bike! As we had only a couple of days in Beijing we did a whistle stop tour of all the sites including Summer Palace (one of my favourite places to go in Beijing), Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and Beihai Gardens. As we did all this on a weekend there were Chinese people everywhere, they filled the park and the palaces and we got to see some of the activities they do including the large outdoor singing they do, thai chi in the park, random dancing and generally relaxing which was very interesting to watch.

We did all this using public transport and it also involved a lot of walking and we managed to beat our previous step record set in Sydeny by covering 40,000 steps which is roughly 30km. By the end of the day we were knackered but we had booked a restaurant suggested by Paul so out we went in search of it. We had looked on Trip advisor and they had said it was difficult to find and they weren’t joking. We probably spent around 40 minutes trying to locate the place which was down a back alley in the middle of nowhere. However it was worth the walking as it does serve the best peking duck I have ever eaten.

The following day we went on a tour to the great wall which involved getting up early and heading out to a slightly less touristy part of the wall, however it did have touristy parts to it, including a cable car to travel up and toboggan to travel back down. We walked the one way on the wall once we took the cable car/ski lift up (very scary given the difference in safety standards between the UK and china) and once we reached the end of the section you are allowed to walk on then we turned around and walked the other way. We walked for a couple of hours in total and took millions of pictures. By the time we were heading off the wall it was starting to get busy with Chinese tourists. We took the toboggan down which was fun as you got to see some of the wall while trying not to crash over the edge or into some slow Chinese person in front. That is something else we have discovered, the Chinese walk really slow and I mean really really slow. It is funny really as they always want to be first off the subway or bus and will push you out the way to get off first but then they proceed to walk really slowly so you have to overtake them within seconds of getting off.

Anyway back to where we were. The next day we left Beijing very early in the morning and headed to Chengdu by plane and once we arrived and got to our new hostel we headed straight out to a nearby town called Leshen to see a big budda. It was a long trip (2 hours each way) but once we arrived we jumped on a local bus then a boat and floated pass the budda before heading back to Chengdu. We headed out to try some local food and the first restaurant/street cafe we tried didn’t go well due to the language barrier so we headed next door where we were able to point at pictures and order some food which was lovely. As we are in the Sichuan region of china the food is very spicy but very nice and very different to Beijing.

The following day we got up early again and headed out to see some Pandas at the Breeding and Research centre just outside Chengdu. We decided to go it alone rather than the tour so we headed out, got some breakfast from a street vendor and then bargained with a taxi driver and off we went. We got there just before the park opened and were the first people in. We walked around the park for several hours and saw a range of pandas, from young baby pandas who were very cute playing with their toys and annoying their mum to fully grown adult pandas. There were also some red pandas at the park and we went through an open enclosure and the pandas walked on the path with us. They got very close and one even sniffed Rich’s shoe before snorting (I don’t blame him, Rich’s feed smell) and scuttling off.

We finished at the centre and headed home using public transport and walking through Chengdu centre, stopping to eat any nice street food on the way. We decided to go to try the local delicacy of hot pot which basically involves two bowls coming to the table which contain hot soup and they are cooked over a flame at the table and you put in raw meat and vegetables and eat them and some of the soup. We did a bit of research before heading out so that we kind of knew what we were doing and could find a place with a menu you could point at. Once we got there we looked over the menu and ordered a large spicy hot pot soup with a small mild hot pot soup in the middle. We also decided against most of the meats, including brains, fish head fresh duck blood ect, and opted for some sausages, some beef, some noodles and some vegetables. The waitress obviously guessed this was our first time and did help us lots but we soon got the hang of putting things in, letting them cook and fishing them back out to eat. It was really nice and before to long we were stuffed and we had some watermelon before heading home for the evening. Tomorrow we are heading for our next destination - Yangshuo.