BEIJING - Beauty,pollution,ducks,cycles & sights!. Review on Beijing

This review on Beijing succeeds the previous review on Hong Kong, where I spent the first 4 days of my recent trip. It can be read at https://mouthshut.com/review/Hong_Kong_-_General-99054-1.html. Continuing now from Day 5 onwards when I reached Beijing..

GENERAL INFO

The People’s Republic of China consists of many provinces spread over a massive area. My aim for this trip was just to visit the capital, Beijing (Peking) in the north and Guilin in the south. Mandarin is the official Chinese language in mainland China and the currency is the Yuan/RMB (1US$ = 8 RMB). Preferably do your currency changes in HK itself, as there are chances of getting duped with counterfeit currency if you do it in China, unless of course you go to proper banks. Street signs in Beijing are in English and Mandarin, but again, since people generally only know Mandarin and since the names in Mandarin and English are pronounced differently; you are helpless unless you can correctly pronounce what you want, in Mandarin! Transportation is generally cheap. There is a good metro (subway) system, excellent bus network and taxies but all of this require good understanding of Mandarin to use, or you need to be daring and just go for it! Most roads in China have dedicated lanes for cyclists, as many, many people use cycles to commute, and the buses also have dedicated lanes and mostly run on over head electricity. Yet, Beijing is superbly polluted and one would be lucky to find blue skies in Beijing! Smoking is a major nuisance throughout China, and every other person you see will light up without any consideration for others. On the long distant trains, it’s good that smoking is allowed only between compartments, but I would still recommend not getting a berth near the door, as the doors are never really closed! During my stay in Beijing, I covered most of the important places except the Summer Palace, which being a little away and not really interesting to me was not done.

DAY FIVE – Shenzhen & Wanfujing Market, Beijing

At 9am, after exchanging some US$ into Yuan, I boarded the KCR train from East TST station to Lo Wu, the border station between Hong Kong and Mainland China. The journey was a quick 40 minutes and I spent 30 minutes at the Chinese border clearing immigration. From there, a few minutes walk over the border between the two countries took me to Shenzhen, the first city on the Chinese side of the border! This was something I was doing for the first time! Shenzhen, particularly the border areas, is famous for its pickpockets, cheap shopping (everything costs probably 10% less than what it does in Hong Kong) and conveniently, right across the border there are few gigantic shopping malls. Since I didn’t have the time and I had a flight to catch in 2 hours, I boarded the K568 airport bus right below the mall, discreetly guarding my pockets! The bus took 45 minutes to reach the Shenzhen Ba’aon International Airport. Of course, I didn’t have my ticket with me; the plan was to purchase the previously booked ticket from the airport. As expected, I was directed back and forth a couple of times and felt like a complete dumb as$ due to the lack of knowing Mandarin, but finally found the counter, paid and checked for my Air China flight between Shenzhen and Beijing. The 2.5 hour flight covering the 2146 km journey between these two cities was very pleasant, the Air China domestic flight turned out to be much better than few of the international flights I have taken and we landed at 5pm on time. And all this for just around US$ 120.

I was staying three nights at the excellent Peking Downtown Backpacker’s Accommodation (RMB 60 per night, located in Nan Luogu Xiang Hutong area, between Jiaodaokuo Nan Dajie and Dianmenwai Dajie, oh yes, try pronouncing that!!), and so was eligible for a free airport pick up. Beijing was cold! What’s more, the city was recovering from a sandstorm that had hit the place a few days back but it looked good so far. My room was excellent and much better than I expected and I quickly settled in. The area I was staying was called a Hutong, meaning a peaceful, city alley area, and there are thousands of such Hutongs in Beijing and is an important part of their culture!(https://chinavista.com/experience/hutong/hutong.html).

I was to meet a good friend at 7pm and she said she would take me around the famous Wangfujing Market area in central Beijing. We set off on foot and later by bus and walked around this lively area, where people were enjoying a leisurely evening stroll while munching on skewers of barbequed meat which were very cheap! There were all kinds of food, ranging from the Arabic shawarma to freshly skewered scorpions ready to be fried!! It was a great experience, and after dinner, we made plans for the next day before parting. My return journey to the hostel was simply horror, and if it was not for the super helpful, small, handy map in Mandarin given by the staff earlier, I would have probably slept on the road that night! Absolutely no one could understand my pronunciation of the tongue twisting street names (can I blame them?!), but victory was mine when I finally landed 2 hours later at midnight on my hostel door step!

DAY SIX – Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Lama Temple - Beijing

Today was marked out to visit some of Beijing’s “must-see” sights like the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple. As there wasn’t much time and too much to see, I set off at 9am, armed with maps and paper slips filled with stuff in Mandarin which I had asked the hostel staff to help me with to make my journey easier! My first stop was the Forbidden City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City ). Situated in the heart of Beijing, this place was from where the imperial kings ruled China from ages ago till around 50 years back. The name comes from the fact that only very important people were let into the area, it was generally out of bounds to everyone. There was some stunning Chinese architecture and museums on display as I walked by, and some of the gardens and scenery around the Forbidden City made my mouth water!

Soon, I was making my way to the Temple of Heaven (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven ), once again a very beautiful Taoist temple where people used to pray for bumper harvests. Though the main area was closed, I had a very nice time strolling around it and taking many pictures! After a quick lunch, I met up again with Jia and also Sindy, a Tibetan girl working in Beijing who wanted to practice her English. In turn, she said she would take both of us to the Lama Temple (https://travelchinaguide.com/attraction/beijing/yonghe.htm ), one of the biggest Buddha temples in China. It was really nice to see the people praying to Buddha, it was peaceful and serene and the architecture was so nice. We clicked many pictures and had a nice time! It was 5pm and I and Jia decided to spend the evening exploring the beautiful Hutong surrounding my hostel, which even she had never been to so far. When in China, do as the Chinese do! So we rented bicycles for 10 RMB each, and it was a very pleasant 2 hour ride in some of Beijing’s most beautiful, hidden areas especially around the Drum Towers, Hu Hai Lake and Qu Hai Lakes. Tomorrow was the Great Wall Adventure!Continued in the comments section..