Beijing

Days eighteen to twenty-one

April 24th - 27th

Total distance 8500 miles

Trip distance 6000 miles

This last section of the trip was spent doing several things on our Beijing to do list.

We found a super hotel, the Lu Song Yuan. It was highly recommended in the Lonely Planet guide, and rightly so. We had an excellent location on the edge of the old Hutongs area of Beijing. This was about 3 miles from the Forbidden city and Tiananmen square.

Our suite was pretty tiny though. A lot of clever stowage was required to get 12 pieces of luggage and five people stowed away. However it was a beautiful traditional chinese property complete with ornate decoration and multiple courtyards.

On the first full day we went to the Great Wall. We wanted to see why Richard Nixon said "It sure is a great wall" It was impressive, but it is not a well managed attraction with confusing signs and uncontrolled commercial development. Having said that when you are walking along those historic cobbles, climbing steeply, you are acutely aware of being in somewhere of enormous importance in the world. When you look North and imagine the Mongol Hordes bearing down on Beijing, you swear you can almost see them down there in the bushes and rocks, sneaking up, an advance party checking you out and reporting back.

Another day was spent at Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City. The main impression we all came away with was the huge size of these places. They are literally kilometers in length. The square is heavily policed, with some sinister looking characters lurking around. The authorities do not want another protest of the kind that alerted the world to China's lack of democracy and free speech. They are taking no chances. We had hoped to see Mao in his crystal coffin but he has a nap in the afternoons so it was not permitted.

The Forbidden city really is a full day. It is so vast, with interconnecting courtyards covering acres. On our visit we saw almost the only rain of the whole trip, so this curtailed our visit.

We found all three main tourist attractions to be impressive but not atall engaging. Perhaps we are spoiled with Western tourist attractions that are of very high quality.

One attraction we really enjoyed was a place called Prince Gong's garden. This is a beautiful house and classic oriental garden, complete with ponds, pagodas and plantings. Many thousand s of people were there and most of them wanted to take Imogen's picture - as usual she enjoyed the VIP treatment.. This has its advantages though. We were allowed into a private room where a Chinese tea ceremony was explained to us in detail.

Other days were spent shopping. Morag and the girls found an indoor market where there were hundreds of stalls selling all manner of things that they liked from Hello Kitty purses to a large gold piggy bank. Unfortunately this got smashed at Heathrow when Max's rucksack fell on the floor.

Some relaxing was done in the internet cafes and restaurants around the Hutongs. The area felt very safe, the children wandered up and down the streets, getting lots of friendly attention.

On the last full day we took a taxi up to see the Olympic site. The main stadium is nearly ready. It is an riot of steel girders that looks like a birds nest, albeit a beautiful one. The swimming centre is next door. This building looks like the surface of a bath covered in bubbles. It is all a bit out there.

Our final day was an early start for our flight to London. The end of this leg.

It was a really mixed day. We left two coats on the minibus that took us to the airport. We learnt something about the Chinese attitude that day. The woman who had organised the bus would not do anything atall to help. She said if we wanted our coats back we would have to pay a lot of money to the the driver to return. We had a heated exchange, and I wished her great luck with a business approach that consists of taking the cash and running - with no consideration for the customer or any future relationship! Subsequently I have found out that a significant part of Chinese culture is to take care of yourself first and foremost - a marked contrast to the warmth of Mongolians and the serious but kind Russians.

A good thing that happened was meeting some police at the airport who were having a graduation ceremony for their cadets. They asked us if we would mind presenting some awards to the cadets. So, bizzarely we ended up standing in a line and pinning a rosette to a grinning police cadet. We then had our photo taken with the Chief of Beijing Police. He was very nice indeed - with superb eyebrows and such a friendly manner that you would not mind being arrested by him.

The last event was the flight back to Heathrow. This was not a great experience because the spoilt Price family who normally always travel in First Class and Club were plonked in Economy for eleven hours. This would not have been so bad if we had not been sitting behind some rough diamonds who drank a great deal of booze and spent some of the flight swearing and trying to pick fights with certain people. A French man who, perhaps typically, took care of himself by reclining his chair straight away and refused to budge, got a great deal of abuse from them. This was sad because he had children with him. In the end the First Officer came and gave them a warning, as they had upset people on a previous flight too.

Having said that, none of this detracted from an epic experience that broadened our horizons, opened up our minds and made us feel in awe of the variety and beauty of our world.

As I write this blog, only now, as I remember all the things we did, does the scale of it come home to me;

Our driveway to Beijing,

Overland

Three children 10, 8 and 5 years old.

8500 miles.

Fifteen countries.

Major world ideologies.

Huge variations in climate.

Diverse people.

All types of terrain.

The mind blowing experience of the first 1/3rd of our trip around the planet is still hitting me - in quiet moments a person or a place comes back to me.

We all want to carry on now. So much more to see. A classroom without walls and a world just out there.

No limits other than those we set on ourselves....