Beijing: Big, Burly, and...Bodacious?

Vanessa Williams, one hit wonder from the 80's, got famous singing that you should save the best for last... and planning a trip to China was no different. After taking in stunning natural surroundings in Yangshuo and Dali, pandas in Chengdu, and the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an, my last stop saw me with three days in the ancient city of Beijing (or Peking as the diplomats often insist on calling it)... and I wasn't all that confident that Beijing would be able to measure up.

The city was quick to prove me well wrong.

Since it's early in the morning as I write this and caffeine is just starting to course through my system, AND since Beijing is a massive, complicated city that defies easy characterization, I figured I'd go the Sesame Street/Cookie Monster route... and describe Beijing around words that start with B.

BIG: Duh. Might as well get this out of the way... Beijing is big - really big. With something like 22 million people and growing, it sprawls all over the place. Thankfully, you've got the choice of a great underground metro system, sitting on buses in traffic, or seriously getting your walk on.

BRUSQUE: Yeah, this is one of the downsides of China. Like a lot of places, there's a noticeable inverse proportion of politeness to the size of the cities. In a nutshell - "The bigger the place, the less smiles on the face." For example, in the smallest of villages or towns, the Chinese proved so incredibly friendly and helpful, from offering a ride in their tractor to surprising us with free tea and coffee on our hike rest stop.

But Beijing echoed my experiences in China's other cities... with such masses of people, politeness does go out the window a bit, with being bumped as you walk in the street a common thing, and a smile of apology a jaw-dropping rarity.

BOISTEROUS: With the economy booming, and China being justifiably proud at the incredible progress they've made in the last generation, there's a definite energy to the city. From the fast-walking people, and everywhere from the poshest of skyscrapers to the most local of street stalls, Beijing feels like it's on the move, with everyone keen to get a piece of the action.

BEAUTIFUL: Taking all of that aside, the bottom line is that Beijing and its surroundings are gorgeous. Sure, there's pollution, and traffic, and a host of other problems that this rapidly surging metropolis has to deal with, but that just makes the petite pockets of prettiness (sorry - couldn't resist the alliteration) stand out that much more. From the quiet halls of the Forbidden City, the tiny alleys of the hutongs, and of course the Great Wall, Beijing continually surprised and impressed at every turn.

BODACIOUS: Well, not really, but as a child of the 80's, I couldn't resist throwing this in.  For bonus points, I'll even add in one more - gnarly.

Right, coming from Xi'an, I got settled in my hostel, smack dab in one of Beijing's hutongs - historic neighborhoods famous for their narrow alley roads, hidden courtyards, and all around coolness. They used to be all working-class areas, and many have been flattened for development, but thankfully the Chinese government has recognized what a treasure they are and protected many.

This place was pretty cool, with doors that opened into a blessed oasis of calm, and complete with super-friendly owners, and, if not helpful, then at least super-cute kittens:

My first day around was spent doing the standard tourist bits, starting in that most mammoth of city plazas - Tiananmen Square. Words like huge and gigantic barely cover it, as it can hold hundreds of thousands of people without a problem:

It's a must see location for tourists foreign and Chinese alike, with everything from Mao's tomb and proud statues celebrating the communist victory...

...to the entrance to the Forbidden City. Security is pretty tight here - and they tend to be a grumpy-appearing lot:

I got in some pics of the mammoth gate, with its iconic picture of Mao but then headed out to explore more of the city, saving the Forbidden City for another day.

Lonely Planet steered me to a great little local kite shop, and I picked up a few Chinese dragon kites that somehow made it back to London intact.

The rest of the afternoon was mostly doing my favorite thing - walking wherever struck my fancy. Making a reconnaissance run into the Silk Alley, a five story shopping mall famous for its knock-offs and fierce FIERCE bargaining, I ended up having a massive meal in a city park. My favorite chili green beans made yet another appearance, but i also got in some awesome, if very greasy, western Chinese-spiced ribs.

My second day was one of the best of the entire trip - hands down. I took up Lonely Planet's suggestion of a full day trip to the Great Wall that included a three hour drive each way. Painful, sure, but taking the longer journey to the Simatai to Jinshanling section meant that we ended up having the Wall mostly to ourselves.

The Wall just took my breath away... sure, I had seen hundreds of pictures over the years, but reality... reality is entirely different. After an hour hike up a steep slope, and then an even steeper climb up crumbling stairs, we got to look back on... well... this:

A grinning older Chinese guy selling sodas was up their grinning as we caught our breath, and in broken English we both agreed that he had a fantastic place to work. : )

All in, we got to hike about 6 km (4 miles) up and down the Wall, and we kept pinching ourselves at how stunning it was:

The history bit of the Wall is that it served a couple of functions. First, although mostly a non-contiguous border, it was always intended as ad defense against the Mongols, but the simple expedient of bribing the guards or just going around the ends of the wall defeated that.

But the Wall also served as a great communications link and highway - letting traders, messengers and soldiers easily move back and forth. It might even have served as ancient Keynesian economic tool - letting the Chinese emperors keep their subjects employed and busy even in a down economy.

After we headed back down, we treated ourselves to much-deserved beers to rehydrate from baking in the heat, and then it was back to Beijing.  A three hour drive stretched to four, fighting through some horrific traffic jams along the way, not helped by the Chinese view that if traffic rules don't work in your favor, make up new ones. It was... exciting.

My last day was a full one, as I got an early start with the Forbidden City. Getting there at 8am, I shared the dawn with the gardeners, and well in advance of most of the tourists.

The City is really a series of connected palaces, and were forbidden to commoners or foreigners for hundreds of years. Thankfully, we could now wander around and take in the sights - from the courtyard where tens of thousands of troops could be reviewed, to modern day guards training to be rigidly perfect in their marching:

The carvings and statues were almost too many to count, but at every turn, there was something else to take in admire, including these ancient bronze lions and brass firefighting water containers:

And I had a grin with a mom, after showing her this picture of her cute son clowning around...

Walking mile after mile of corridors wore me out, and with the ever-increasing crowds, it was time to beat feet, and check out Jingshan Park and it's amazing view over Beijing:

Cultural bits done, the rest of the day was devoted to stocking up and filling my backpack, as I had to get some non-backpacking clothes for my 20th high school reunion back in the States. From wandering around some hutongs and my favorite stop - an 80 year's traditional toymaker's....

...I did a quick stop at the sprawling Lama Temple complex...

... but it was time to take a deep breath and head into Silk Alley and its own brand of sheer shopping chaos. When my own frenzy came to close, I took stock and realized that I had stocked up on surprisingly good fake Polo shirts, picked up handmade trousers, and a whole bunch of stuff that just might make an appearance for my family at Christmas. By the end of the day, I was barely able to close my backpack, but more than content, the rest of the night was spent screaming myself hoarse at an Irish pub with a bunch of US expats, watching Landon Donovan score a last second goal to let us advance in the World Cup.

And as a final B-word nod to the 80's... bitchin'!  And a perfect way to go to sleep, before catching an early flight to Tokyo and then to the US to bring this leg of my RTW trip to a close.

Xi'an: Where Terracotta Is King

(My journey's now come full circle, as I'm now back in London... and two months on, I'm STILL playing catch up with my blog.)

Ask any entertainer, and they'll agree that it's pretty hard to compete with children or cute animals - they'll upstage you every time.  Cities must have the same problem, as coming from Chengdu, home of the lovable lazy pandas, I was pretty much expecting to be underwhelmed by my next stop, the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an.

Fortunately, Xi'an is lucky enough to boast its own rich city landscape - as the ancient capital of China, and occupying a halfway point between coastal Han and the more Islamic parts of the country, it has a unique feel to the visitor.  And sure, that's all well and good, but Xi'an is also blessed by its proximity to one of the stranger burial grounds ever discovered - a massive underground complex that is home to thousands and thousands of clay statues... the Terracota Warriors.

Now, maybe it's a name that conjures up images of the worst of 70's retro, when terracota was huge, but I couldn't help but chuckle at the prospect of seeing hordes of fierce warriors made essentially like my parents' old flower pots in the backyard.  So, I have to confess it - unlike Yangshuo or the Tiger Gorge, I booked my trip to Xi'an out of a sense of tourist duty; a sort of "since you're here, you might as well as go..." type of thing and not expecting any sort of real excitement.

Whoops.

Xi'an would prove to be a nice surprise, a calmer vibe especially after the urban chaos of Chengdu, and the Terracota Warriors more than lived up to their billing.

This leg of the trip started with my flight out of Chengdu not exactly inspiring confidence, as we were kept waiting for an hour on the tarmac due to... something that was never explained.  Probably for the best, as with these cut-rate fares, while they are a backpacker's friend, you can't help but think that just maybe, maintenance could be a bit... lacking.

Once we got into Xi'an airport, the bus ride away from our plane only served to confirm this - as this picture seemed to illustrate:

The combination of bicycles on the tarmac of this most high-tech of locations, plus the pilot's body language as he checked out the plane... "hey, the engine IS still on"... it definitely made me glad to have only one more intra-China hop on my itinerary.

But the good news is that once I was actually in Xi'An proper, it was an amazing city.  As a previous capital to the newly united China, Xi'An is surrounded by towering walls built in stages and complexity beginning in the 10th century, that protect a number of fascinating neighborhoods.

I got settled in yet another awesome Chinese hostel, this one the YHA in a restored 16th century complex, complete with cute yet feisty kittens pouncing on the unwary backpacker.

Then, there was nothing left to do but just hit the streets and see what happened.  I headed immediately to the Muslim Quarter, which was a heady mix of Chinese culture, overlaid with unique Islamic influences.  Wandering the market streets, it was a constant feast for the senses, from watching the locals taking in the scene:

... to tasty-looking, if safety-lacking, streetside eateries:

I got happily lost in the byways and alleys of this part of town, and spent an hour walking around and around trying to find the Quarter's ancient mosque.  Persistence paid off and I finally got into the grounds where I was promptly waylaid by cute, and incredibly polite girls who asked me to fill out a tourist survey.  Sure, no problem, I thought... until I realized it was literally 10 pages of single-spaced questions asking about every possible facet of my Chinese tourist experience.  They obviously had not heard of keeping things 'short and sweet'... they were too nice to refuse point-blank, so when their backs were turned, I used my best escape skills to beat a hasty retreat.

Back on the streets, I kept on just walking wherever the mood struck me - including the restored Drum and Bell Towers...

... before calling it a day.  China in summer is hot, hot, hot, with a bonus side order of stickiness, so I was more than a little in need of another shower.  A bit rundown by this point, I wussed out on the more exotic eating options and ducked into a blessedly air-conditioned Pizza Hut, where I made a token nod to trying new foods by experimenting in the "Black Bean Sauce" pizza.  Surprisingly good fusion of stir-fry flavors with pizza, but I don't think Domino's will be adding this to the menu back home anytime soon.

More World Cup action, and it was a relatively early night to gear up for the big event the next day - a field trip to the Terracota Warriors.

Waking up around 6:30, I was fired up on getting an early start to beat as many of the crowds as possible.  And that worked, to a point, as I caught a motorcycle taxi to the incredibly chaotic main bus station... with thousands of people surging all over the place.  The driver tried the old 'increase the price upon arrival' trick - and because I was pretty apathetic to argue too much over a pound, he got an extra 10 yuan out of me.

That sort of attitude seemed to be pretty endemic to the Terracota Warriors scene.  The local bus got me there no problem, and I was excited to see the first of the day's many statues looming over the parking lot:

Once inside the complex, I did get snookered pretty good.  I ducked into a little noodle shop, and was handed a menu.  Looking at the menu that strangely didn't have prices, I picked a stir-fry noodle dish and a Coke, then got to chatting and even making balloon animals for the owner's kids.

Finishing, I got up to leave... when the bill came.

I had been expecting a bit of a price jump for eating at a tourist location, but when he handed me the bill and with a straight face asked for 80 yuan, I laughed out loud thinking he must be joking.  Normally, that's about 10 yuan, TOPS.

Sure enough, he showed me the menu he kept with prices hidden underneath the register and it had the price.  I was NOT amused and moreover didn't have enough cash for it.  So, after trying the ATM's in the complex with him following anxiously, I finally just got a £5 note and some small Chinese notes and just gave them to him, dusted my hands, and basically dared him to argue.

Very disappointing.

But, once I got over my irritation and was walking around the complex, it went a long way to making up for it... built for a Chinese Emperor so that he might enter the afterlife protected and in the style he was accustomed, it features 3 major tombs hiding over 6,000 statues.  As a world treasure, it's an amazing site - with each statue featuring a completely unique face, and surviving remarkably intact through the years.  Two peasants digging a well came across the tombs in the '70's and even now the work still goes on to unearth more and more chambers.

Words are one thing, but pics are better - so here are some of the highlights:

That took up most of the day, and after some tasty Singaporean food for dinner, I was pretty wiped out, and called it a day... getting ready this time for a quick flight to Beijing and my (sniff) last stop in an amazing China trip.

And just to show that globalization is no joke - I even came across that staple of mid-American fast food, a Dairy Queen of all things.  Unreal.