4 Star Toilets

I traveled like a local today by bus, to the Beijing Botanic Garden and Summer Palace complex. I wanted to mix with the average Beijinger. It’s hard to describe what the people look in Beijing. I guess like most cities there are people from many different countries and also the various regions of China. I caught an early morning bus so there was a good cross section of migrant workers. The largest group really stood out for me because despite looking Asian they did not look Chinese. Very dark skin, hazel coloured eyes, pointed noses and flicking worry beads. We spent much of the bus journey curiously at each other. In fact most of the bus passengers just stared at me. I guess they don’t get many tourists taking the local bus. Tourists, like the ex-pats travel by taxi as they are cheap, however not always easy to catch. I learnt from watching that the only place you can hail a cab is from a minor road. On any of the boulevards it seems that it is illegal to catch a cab.

All of the buses have a conductor or conductress in my case. There is a Chinese version of Celine Dion's (or Jennifer Rush?) The Power of Love playing from somewhere. Over the top of this the conductress is what I can only describe as MC’ing over the top of the music. I don’t speak Chinese so can only guess that she is telling people to move down or what stop we are coming to. After I have paid my fare she asks one of the migrant workers to give me his seat. Do all tourists get this treatment or is because I look more knackered than the guy who has probably worked a double shift?

Lots of the passengers are carrying clear flasks of green tea. No tea bags just leaves in hot water. The leaves sit at the bottom of the container and eventually unfurl and float. Apparently the best leaves float vertically. I got to enjoy some myself when I met the vice director of the Beijing Botanic Garden for an unplanned meeting in the garden's botanical conservatory. At the time, 1999, the conservatory was one of the biggest construction projects in Beijing, covering an area of 6,500 square meters with over 3000 different plants. This building is a mere egg when compared to the nearly finished Birds Nest stadium.

Statues inside the conservatory

Beijing Institute of Architecture www.biad.com.cn/Products/Detail_06_05.htm

The botanical gardens are set at the foot of the West Hill (Xi Shan) in the suburbs of Beijing and seem to be the only place to escape the smog and bustle of the urban areas. Being China though you are never alone for long and despite being set in 200 hectares and being a weekday the garden was busy. I could have easily spent the whole day here but my next location was a much older garden.

More info about the Beijing Botanic Garden www.beijingbg.com/English/index.asp

Originally called 'Qingyi Garden' (Garden of Clear Ripples) the Summer Palace was constructed in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234). During the succeeding reign of feudal emperors it continued to be extended. By the time of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), it had become a luxurious royal garden providing royal families with rest and entertainment. Sadly as was the case with Yuyan Gardens, plundering by foreign troops in 1860 destroyed most of the buildings. In 1888 they were renovated by Empress Dowager Cixi using embezzled navy funds to reconstruct it for her own benefit. It was then that it became known as the Summer Palace (Yiheyuan). Subsequent foreign destruction occured again in 1900 but happily in 1998 it was listed as one of the World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

The Summer Palace is an archetypal Chinese garden with water playing a dominant feature namely a giant lake. Dotted around the shoreline and amongst the hills are magnificent palaces and temples. From the Tower of Buddhist Incense you get a panoramic view of Beijing.

This was another place that I could have spent all day as there are over 200 hectares to explore. However the light started to fade quickly and I had no idea what time the garden shut so before it got too dark I looked for any signs that looked like EXIT but I just kept coming across 4 star toilets!

Fears of dying of hyperthermia in the garden overnight began to set in, aided by not knowing the words for 'How to I get out of here?' Luckily I remembered that there was a McDonalds near the entrance. Having on first sight cursed whoever allowed the American golden arches to be built near a world heritage site I was actually glad for this landmark. Using the universal language of fastfood I just had to ask one person 'McDonalds?' and I was shown the way out.

Moving Forward Good Orderly Citizen

I am taking the 10 hour train to Beijing. It could be worse Urumqi takes 44hrs and no I have no idea where that is either it was on the China train travel website which has lots of useful info http://www.seat61.com/China.htm

Having suffered the occasional mild panic attack from people surges I braced myself for Shanghai train station. I had nightmares about the scenes from Christmas time where 2 million people got stranded at stations around China. Thankfully the process was very smooth. The porter did try to charge me 50Y for bumping my bags no more than 2 metres. The taxi to the station only cost 19Y. All bags go through an X-ray machine. Well unless you are carrying what looks like a gift then they don’t seem to bother. So if you see anyone suspicious carrying a big box with a colourful bow – run! Joking aside JC told me that last week some Chinese nationals had threatened to blow themselves up on a internal flight. It seems terrorism has also come to China.

I asked JC to get me a soft class ticket (1st class 439Y) I peered into the hard class expecting wooden benches but the seats were just a little narrower than 1st class. The advantage of traveling by train is that you can use an MP3 player at all times. This is my effective sound blocker from the male phlegm throat chorus. Unlike the long distance trains in the UK there are no quiet zone carriages and as the coach was full of (male) businessmen phones were constantly going off.

From my window seat I had a good opportunity to see the Chinese landscape, another reason to travel by train. We passed lots of new dual carriageways that looked eerily quiet much like the black and white films from the 1960’s showing new motorways in England. Car ownership is clearly confined to the large cities. Housing is a complete mix. High rise blocks some 16 floors tower over shacks and 2 storey townhouses. I was please to see that many had solar panel water heaters. The 2 storey houses had black roof tiles which reminded me of Michael Palin’s leap across a train track to bring back a Chinese roof tile for Terry Gilliam in the BBC programme Around the World in 80 Days.

I joked about the airplane safety video in an earlier post on the Shanghai flight about no remote control cars. In between the mobile phones and throat clearing I could hear a whirring and whining noise. In the aisle behind me were two grown men in suits playing with a remote control Porsche.

The train magazine features an article about an usual barber who has a scary alternative to scissors.

Arriving in Beijing the taxi queue was worse than Paddington station on a train strike day. There did not seem to be a system of dropping off and collecting passengers. I was tired and the wind was blowing Gobi desert sand everywhere. There was no way of getting across the boulevard avenues to hail a cab from the other side of the road. I got into what I thought was a taxi and agreed a price I knew was triple what I should be paying. At the first set of traffic lights the driver jumped out and changed his number plates when he saw a police car around the corner. Despite saying he knew where my guesthouse was and having the map and address in Chinese, he did not seem to know where it was 10 minutes into the journey. He started making calls on his mobile and I had visions of him arranging for me to stay somewhere else, permanently.

I was convinced of his alternative motives even more when he refused to call the owner of where I was staying. He also refused to ask directions when we were roughly in the right district. Perhaps this was due to not showing bad face or men never asking for help with directions. We arrived at the dark alleyway entrance to the Hutong where I was staying and began to demand his fare. I assured him I would pay him when we had reached the front door of the hostel. Did he think I was going to run off with 40kg of my luggage and not pay him? Before I could give him all of the money he grabbed what I had in my hand and ran off into the dark.

The situation quickly changed though when the elaborate antique door of the Hutong was opened by a tired but smiling Mr Yang. Zheng Yang is the husband of the owner to Kelly’s Courtyard, a traditional hutong house now run as a guesthouse. Hutongs are narrow streets or even smaller just alleyways that are characteristic of Beijing. Along the hutongs are siheyuan (courtyard) traditional houses. For many years since the founding of The People’s Republic of China the number of Beijing hutongs has dropped dramatically as they are demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. More recently, some hutongs have been designated as protected areas in an attempt to preserve this aspect of Chinese cultural history.

Lots of beautiful decorative Chinese furniture at Kelly’s Courtyard