Beijing

Koh Rong, Cambodia 5.11.2014

We arrived in Beijing in the late morning of the 24th of October by train from Ulan Bator. The journey took 30 hours. The most interesting part was changing the rails of the train vagons because in China they use a different distance between the rails. This process took about six hours. The border control was pretty quick and easy. The view after the Gobi desert changed totally into mountains and rivers that was very beautiful. We got to see some countryside of China.

Beijing Railway Station was not so busy in the middle of the day. We had googled our hotel and headed straight to the metro. It was simple to use the metro and the metro stops were written also in our letters. In every station there is a security control. Once in our supposed right metro station we started to walk towards the hotel. Quite soon we realized that we hade googled the hotel too broadly. We had no idea where we were. Everything was huge and continued everywhere. We only had the address on our letters but we should have had one in Chinese letters. Taxi drivers can't read our letters. After three hours of walking with our backpacks one taxi driver called the hotel himself to find it. He took us to the hotel and we were totally in the wrong place. Our hotel was the cheapest but located near to metro station Shilipu on the east side of Beijing. There should have been English speaking service but there was not at all. The first feeling about the city was that it is huge. Just something too big. In the area of the hotel there wasn't any other tourists or hotels so it seemed a real Chinese suburb. We were starving so we went looking for a restaurant. Any of them had an English menu. We chose the one with most people and a menu with pictures. Smiling works internationally and the food was great.

Before arriving to the city we contacted Yob, a Dutch friend living there now for last few years. In the evening we went to meet him. We were excited of finding the area and the place we were supposed to meet after the hectic morning "orientation gone bad". But we found the place right away and enjoyed some Chinese brewed beers with our friend. After this the city seemed a little more okay. We spent the whole Saturday with Yob and went to a music festival in Dirty Monster Club out of the center. There were nice Chinese bands and also some expats too. Locals didn't speak English. Great experience.

We planned a trip to the Great Wall on Sunday but we slept late. And weekends are the busiest time there so we postponed it to Monday. Instead we went to the Hutong areas, Lama Temple and Tianamen Square. Lovely shopping places in the hutong areas. The Temple was huge and something nice  and quiet in the middle of the city. We arrived in Tiananmen before 5pm and just as arrived something startes to happen. Lot of guards started to push all the people away to close the street. Even the locals seemed not to know what was happening. The guards just shouted to us in Chinese. We thought some politically important persons would come out or pass the street. After maybe half an hour souldiers came out and took the Chinese flag down from pole. That was it all about. Hundreads of people were looking and taking pictures. The road in front was totally stopped. It had eight lines. Sunday was different beacuse the air pollution was at lower level. Since our arrival there was really bad smog and the top of buildings disappeared even on a sunny day. You can feel the pollution in your lungs. But when the wind came from Siberia all the smog went away and the whole city looked different.

Monday morning we woke up early to get to the Great Wall. We took the metro in the rush hour and it was something unbeliavable. In the day time the metro was so easy. In the morning we waited like 25 minutes and five trains before getting in. Monica took the earlier and Johannes the next after. We couldn't fit in the same. People were pushing more people in but it was unuseful. The vagons were already so full.

We thought of going by train to Badaling (takes only one hour, costs 6 yuans) but it was sold out. So we asked the staff how can we go there and they had a little book where they showed instructions to tourists because they couldn't speak any English.

The bus leaved from Xizhimen and there are fake bus signs next to the metro station. We took the bus 877 that goes straight to the Wall. They say some companies take tourists also to other stops and make them pay extra. We ended up in the right place and in the bus there were only two other tourists. Other were all Chinese. A Chinese wanted a selfie with us. The bus was pretty fast and went straight to Badaling. That part of the Great Wall there is from the 13th century but is reconstucted well. Three kilometers are open to public. The Great Wall was beautiful but not as like in pictures it was crowded and the area before entering the wall was full of shops and loud music. Peacefullness was far from there. We walked to the hardest part and there weren't so many people. The Great Wall was worth visiting.

After the visit we headed back to the hotel and took our stuff to the airport. This flight to Kuala Lumpur we had booked in advance from Finland but we bought online from AirAsia a flight straight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Travelling was long but the night flight with Malaysia Airlines was really good. Finally we arrived in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. It was +32 degrees.