After
four nights in Kunming, Aman and I were off to check out the capital city of Beijing
– the sprawling metropolis that is one of the world’s most populous cities. Given the distance between Kunming and Beijing
(2700+ kilometers), we chose to fly (it would have taken a day and a half of
straight driving otherwise), which was pretty uneventful. For most of the flight, Aman and I kept our
heads down, reading and/or writing. At
one point, however, I noticed that an unusually long announcement had been
going on in Mandarin. Up until then, the
announcements were brief and delivered in back-to-back Mandarin and English. What are
they talking about and when is the English version going to start, I
thought, as I glanced up, curious to see what was happening. I looked around, and then elbowed Aman in the
ribs. He shot me an annoyed look that
said, why are you elbowing me in the
ribs? Look up, I said quietly. Flight
attendants were standing in the aisles and leading the passengers through a
series of mid-flight seat exercises. Everyone
had their arms stretched above their heads… They leaned left… They leaned right… They returned to center. Oh, yet another sign that we were a long way
from home. Aman and I smiled at each
other and put our heads back down for the rest of the flight.
Arriving in Beijing, we were super excited. For this leg of the journey, Aman and I had
plans to stay in a traditional hutong
neighborhood. A hutong refers to the narrow gray alleyways formed by rows and rows
of the traditional courtyard residences of Old Beijing. They stand out in sharp contrast to the more
modern high-rise buildings and wide-set boulevards that have started to
dominate the city in recent times. (In
fact, many traditional hutongs have been
and are being demolished to make way for the city’s modern era, which is a
shame.)
The particular hutong
where we stayed, which had been converted into a small hotel, was amazing. Like most hutongs,
we entered the premises from the south.
Some people say that all of the hutongs
face south because this design allowed more light into the courtyards, others
say that they all face
south in accordance with relevant principles of feng shui – regardless the reason, all of the hutongs that we saw faced south.
Our hutong was no
different.
Once inside, our hutong
had two little courtyards filled with small trees, plastic plants and cozy
seating areas. The wooden beams of the
building were painted in bright red and green, and oversized Chinese lanterns hung
from the eaves. The rooms were equally
full of character with traditional furniture and décor. It was easily one of the most charming places
where we have stayed since starting this journey, and Aman had to pull me away
from it after we first checked in so we could go explore.
They say that Beijing is not a “walk-able” city – and
frankly, it’s not. But Aman and I didn’t
know that when we first arrived, so we speak from direct experience when we say
that Beijing is not the most walking-friendly city that we have seen. Beijing, in fact, is one of the most
sprawling cities we have ever visited.
When walking around, it was not uncommon to encounter boulevards that
were ten lanes wide, which could only be crossed via under- or overpass. This design made every distance seem that
much longer.
On our first afternoon in town, we walked for several hours
to the neighborhood of Sanlitun (it looked so close to our hutong on the map…). Popular
with both ex-pats and locals, we had heard that Sanlitun had some great bars
and restaurants that we were interested in knowing more about. Although the walk was long, it was a
beautiful afternoon and we wandered the streets with the excitement that comes
with being in a new place for the first time.
By the time we got to Sanlitun, it was early evening and we
were in search of a specific café-bar, the Tree, which sounded interesting
according to our Lonely Planet guidebook.
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we never found the Tree that
night (this has been frustrating, but not uncommon over the course of our
trip). We did, however, happen upon a
very busy street situated behind a glitzy modern shopping mall, which was full
of nightlife. When we arrived on the
scene, music was playing loudly from the stand of a street vendor who was
offering CDs for sale, and the street was otherwise lined with food vendors
serving up anything that could be grilled on a skewer. These stands seemed to be very popular with
the passersby who sat at little stools and ate from metal dishes covered in
plastic wrap.
Aman and I grabbed a table at a wine bar that had an outdoor
seating area, and it was basically a fascinating night of people watching from
there. At some point during the night,
we decided to add an extra night to our stay in Beijing – we were already that
impressed with the city and we had barely even seen anything yet.
The following day, we decided to check out Tiananmen Square,
which sits just south of the Forbidden City.
Again, it looked close enough to our hutong
when I looked at the map… Of course, it
took us over an hour to get there on foot.
To make the walk more interesting, we stuck to the smaller streets and hutongs that surround Old Beijing. The roads were dusty, and everything seemed
to be a monochromatic shade of gray.
The same was true of Tiananmen Square – a vast square of
gray surrounded by gray buildings (and the occasional flash of red or
green).
We hung out there for a while in amazement… Tiananmen Square. Here was a place that neither Aman nor I had
ever thought that we would see in person, and that made it all the more amazing
to experience.
That night, after a very long walk from Tiananmen Square, we
wound up back in the Sanlitun neighborhood.
We had decided earlier in the day to make another attempt to find the
Tree. Well, strike two, we still
couldn’t find it. We settled instead for
another restaurant-bar on the busy little street where we sat the night
before. Bummed as we were about not
being able to find the one place that we were looking for, this was a fortunate
turn of events. You see, the bar where we ended up was packed when we first got there.
There wasn’t a single table empty on the large outdoor terrace. We found one table that was half empty and
asked the three guys who were sitting there if they wouldn’t mind sharing with
us the two empty stools that they weren’t using. A friendly bunch, it didn’t take long before
we were all chatting amongst each other.
One of them, Tom, overheard me and Aman talking about doing a tour of
the Great Wall of China via, GASP, motorcycle sidecars – this was something
that Aman and I had just learned about while we were sitting there, and we were
wide-eyed with excitement at the thought of touring the Great Wall from
motorcycle sidecars. Long story short –
it turned out that Tom’s friend, Ezra, happened to run a business similar to
the one we were researching that night.
Tom put us in touch with Ezra, we wound up doing a tour with his people
two days later, and it was absolutely incredible – hands down, the experience
of a lifetime. We’ll get to that in a
minute.
The next day, we got a late start for no reason other than
it was a beautiful morning and we decided to take our time as we were leaving
our hutong for the day. So after eating a stellar breakfast of
assorted dumplings and steamed buns – a type of breakfast that we ate daily in
Beijing – we lingered in the sunny courtyard reading books and drinking this
most amazing jasmine tea that was stocked in our room every day.
When we eventually made it out, the agenda for the day was
to visit the Temple of Heaven, a complex of several religious buildings
constructed in the 15th century and used by the ancient emperors as a place of
prayer for good harvests. Our favorite
structure was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests itself, an iconic building
with a blue-tiled roof set upon three levels of marble stone, and constructed
magnificently without a single nail (quite common in ancient Chinese
architecture). It was absolutely
beautiful with the late afternoon sun shining upon it.
Leaving the park where the temple buildings sit, we were
desperate to find a rickshaw, as we had been walking for hours and were pretty
exhausted. We were hopeful when one man
spotted and approached us.
Unfortunately, these were the only places he was willing to bring us.
And so we hiked back to our little hutong from there….
The next day was filled with more exploration of Old Beijing
– namely, the Forbidden City, a fascinating place. Knowing that our day would involve a lot of
walking, Aman and I decided at the outset that it would make a lot of sense to
take a taxi there. So we had one of the
receptionists at our hutong write
down the phrase, “Forbidden City,” and we were off. We found a taxi pretty quickly, said nihao (hello!) to our driver, gave him
our little note of direction, and said shishi
(thanks!) – sadly, hello and thanks are still the only two words of Mandarin we
know... We thought we were really clever
with this plan too, until, of course, our taxi driver dropped us off at the
north gate, and we had to take a second rickshaw to get to the south gate.
(Previously, you could enter the Forbidden City through either gate, but they
recently changed the rules so that now, all visitors must enter from the
south.) Ah, another morning filled with
confusion…
Despite the fact that it was still early when we finally got
to the south gate entrance, tourists were steadily streaming in from all
directions. (The Forbidden City gets up
to 80,000 visitors per day. That number
climbed to 200,000 per day during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It is one of the most insanely busy places
that we have seen on this trip.)
Standing in line for our tickets, we were approached by a local kid
offering guide services. It had been
awhile since Aman and I used a guide, but we thought that this was a good place
to learn about and so we negotiated a tour price. This turned out to be a good decision because
many facts about the Forbidden City are not plainly obvious. For instance, in the outer courtyard, the
long gray paving stones were originally layered 15 levels deep so as to prevent
any would-be assassinators from tunneling into the city and surprising the
emperors. For similar reasons, there are
no trees (i.e., hiding spots for potential bad guys) in the courtyard. Twenty-four emperors ruled from the Forbidden
City over the Ming and Xing dynasties.
Our guide pointed out which gates and buildings they would have used –
as opposed to other gates and buildings that family or military advisors, for
example would have used. Great stories
about ancient life in Beijing, it was quite the informative day. And, the complex itself was just
amazing. We loved the colorfully
decorated buildings, the upturned eaves, the little animals that stood guard on
the corners of the roofs to bring good luck and ward off bad fortune,
everything.
We saved the Great Wall of China for our last full day in
Beijing. As mentioned above, it was kind
of fortunate, to say the least, that we ran into the right people on the
front end of our Beijing visit. Now we
weren’t simply thrilled to be visiting the Great Wall, we were doubly thrilled
to be doing so via a motorcycle sidecar tour.
We awoke that morning, grabbed a quick dumpling breakfast,
and not long after were greeted at the entrance of our hutong by Giordano (my wonderful driver for the day), Samantha (the
lovely girlfriend of Ezra), and a local Chinese kid with spiky dark hair, a
black leather Harley Davidson jacket and a cellphone that had a plastic teddy
bear cover on it (Aman’s driver for the day).
Aman’s driver smiled a lot but he did not speak English, so Samantha had
agreed to come along and ride as a passenger on Aman’s driver’s bike. Everyone was super friendly, and it was
immediately clear that we were going to have an awesome day. After quick introductions, Aman and I jumped
into our respective sidecars, which were surprisingly comfortable. We barreled down the gray alley outside our hutong, with nothing but the deafeningly
awesome engine sound of a Chang Jiang motorcycle in our ears. Heads turned as we noisily made our way out
of Beijing and we were soon on the highways.
We made a couple of stops along the way – to see some sights
(i.e., the Silver Pagodas), to chat with each other, and to give the motorcycle
engines the occasional rest. It was
super relaxing.
At one point, Aman’s driver let Aman drive the
motorcycle. He did so like a pro, of
course.
Of course, the real highlight of the day was actually seeing
the Great Wall. Giordano and Samantha
brought us to a very remote, non-touristy spot where we had great views of
original and restored sections of the wall. (The original parts were built during the Ming dynasty in the 16th century.) When we reached the wall, we took a right and started walking up in a
side-to-side diagonal fashion, much the same as a road makes hairpin turns
along a steep mountain. This particular
section of the wall rises and falls sharply so, at times, it was a difficult
climb. We took breaks as needed, which
conveniently allowed us to marvel at the spectacular views.
Samantha and Giordano ran ahead at one point to set up our
lunch, which Samantha had prepared and packed for the day. Aman and I hung back, letting the experience
soak in. When we met up with our guides
again, three watchtowers later, we found quite an impressive picnic spread of
roast chicken, homemade focaccia bread, a pizza covered in vine-ripened
tomatoes, a carving board full of cheese and sliced meats, bowtie pasta salad
with fresh basil and cherry tomatoes, fresh papaya, espresso (to be made in old school Italian espresso maker) and, most
importantly, a bottle of fine Italian red wine.
We could barely believe our eyes…
the food, the wine, the view…
unbelievable!
After lunch, we continued along the wall to the next exit /
entry point. This particular section of the
wall is so off-the-beaten-path that we hardly saw another person all day. In all, we walked a four-kilometer stretch of the wall that day before
jumping back into our sidecars and making our way back to Beijing. Driving in China is not the same as driving
in Vietnam (i.e., more gray factory towns, less scenic beauty) but it was still a pretty amazing day as we watched the sun falling behind the northern mountains of Beijing in the late afternoon.
That night, exhausted, but in a good way, we laid low. It was our last night after an amazing five days in Beijing. At times, it was tiring - both physically (from the walking) and mentally (from the inability to communicate and ease of getting lost). But it was also very rewarding. Beijing has a tremendous past, a glimpse of which definitely comes across when you are touring the ancient sights. But there is also a very modern feel to the city, which combines with the past to create a truly unique culture.
On our final afternoon, we had plans of meeting up to have a drink with Ezra and Samantha, since we had enjoyed our previous afternoon with Samantha so much and, also, didn't want to miss a chance to meet Ezra, who we had heard a lot about the day before. (He was out of town on business that day; Aman and I were the first group to visit the Great Wall without him since he started running these sidecar tours.) We met them at Cafe Sambal, a rustic looking Malaysian restaurant located in an old hutong, where we relaxed for an hour or two talking about travel, living abroad and China, among other things. Ezra and Aman bonded immediately over a shared love for Royal Enfield motorcycles, which Aman grew up riding in India and Ezra uses for motorcycle tours that he runs in India. Very interesting couple, and very enjoyable to meet them. It was a good ending to our time in Beijing... that and, of course, the experience of leaving Beijing that night via train station. What a place!!
No comments:
Post a Comment