Baby Pingyao?

We took the sleeper train to the Ming dynasty walled city of Pingyao - so remarkably preserved you don't really even need to imagine what it would have been like hundreds of years ago.

Temples and impressive buildings aside (for photo's click here) there wasn't a whole heap else to do in Pingyao - architecture aside, the most interesting aspect of this stop was getting our train tickets out of there ...

Although China is moving toward capitalism at relentless pace, the railways remain state owned and highly planned. The impact of this for travel is that tickets (particularly "soft sleeper") can be very hard to come by indeed. Tickets only go on sale 3 days in advance, by which time many have already been pre-allocated to party officials, state enterprises and people with connections in high places. The remaining tickets are allocated somewhat arbitrarily to various stations en-route - with Pingyao having no of allocation whatsoever.

Enter the national pastime of getting round arbitrary rules. We soon discovered that guesthouses along the way are the best people to get the tickets you need - by emailing ahead to get round the 3-day rule. In this case it meant them calling someone at a station 90 minutes before Pingyao to buy a sleeper ticket from there.

On the day of travel the helper catches the train at the earlier station, exchanging the ticket for the bunk token. The guesthouse provides a photocopy of the ticket, which you swap with the helper on the platform as they alight .. presumably to catch a bus home. Ridiculously inefficient, but it works.

As I finish writing this from our hotel in Vietnam, at last I've stepped from behind the bamboo firewall and been able to get at my photos - the remaining Japan photos from Tokyo, Hemeji Castle and of course, Mount Fuji are all live now (including some rather better ones of the mountain than my blind guess for the post!)

While we stayed in Pingyao our friends Anna & Dave had a baby boy - so a big congratulations to the Vickers family. Although we still haven't heard whether or not they decided to go with our suggested name of Pingyao - come on guy's, you know it would be great ...

Climbing the Great Wall ...

We took a day trip to a section of wall about 3 hours drive North of Beijing to escape the worst of the crowds, allowing the opportunity for me to climb the 10km section of wall between Jinshanling and Simitai.

The day brought some light drizzle and mist, which, combined with the increased elavation it made for a thankfully cooler (but still 29 degrees) day for the climb. The weather definitely didn't do anything for the photo's, but it certainly made the experience more atmospheric.

We may have escaped most of the tourists, but this had a downside as we subjected to the most organised and persistent display of hawking (books, t-shirts, postcards) that I've experienced anywhere. The ratio of hawkers was about 1:1, which necessitated the golden bullet approach - they each targeted a single person constantly for about 2-3km (1 hour) up and down steep sections of the wall.

Despite the cooler weather it was so humid I must still have lost of couple of litres of fluid on the climb - still there was nothing too technically difficult, but the gradient was fairly relentless, and it required use of hands in quite a few places where the wall had partially collapsed.

Not only is the wall a great feat of engineering, but it's in some of the most rugged terrain that just getting to it would surely have put most potential invaders off.

Ironically the history books say it was so easy to bribe the guards stationed there, that the walls only real success was as a transport route. I for one wouldn't have managed nearly so well had I been portering 50 kilo's of rice ...

The hawkers aside, this was a really great way to see the wall - and an absolute breeze compared to our recent experience on Mt. Fuji ... You can see all the photos from the day here.

Well, it's just not cricket ...

In fact it's Grasshopper. Or rather 3 of them.

It all started with a superb meal in one of Beijing's Peking Duck restaurants. Then somehow, after a few late afternoon beers, we found ourselves at the famous night market daring each other to eat the more exotic skewers. After some negotiation we decided that my challenge was scorpions, and Mel would eat grasshoppers.

The technique is quite simple. Close your eyes. Imagine a nice salty beer snack. Pop the critter in your mouth whole. Then chew. Oh, and make sure you don't get a leg or tail stuck up your nose in the process. Actually they were suprisingly inoffensive.

We tried lots of new food during our week in Beijing - from the pretty tame water lilies, to the rather more exotic chicken heart skewers and duck tongue soup (finished with whole duck tongues).

Even after surviving these experiences, the sight of a small girl walking down the street eating a deep fried starfish 10 inches in diameter still managed to turn the stomach a little - and we definitely draw the line at dog ...

I just had to take a photo of this ...

I found this whilst cycling past a bar in Beijing one morning - a clear & direct advertising message if ever I saw one !

Have a good weekend - whatever you're drinking.

Taking the heat in the Hutong ...

Welcome to the China - where (unlike the rest of Asia) a massage really does appear to be a massage - yet a good proportion of barber shops seem to be engaging openly in prostitution.

Contemplating a whole new meaning to the expression "cut & blow", but with little personal risk of inadvertedly being drawn into the sex trade, I set off in the 40 degree heat to inspect our new locale for our week in Beijing, the historic Banchang Hutong.

Hutongs are areas of low rise traditional housing, originally established during times of Mongol rule. Each Hutong, or street, is lined with entrances to a maze of alleyways and courtyards containing individual residences. Even today many of these houses have no running water or sanitation, relying instead on a network of public toilet/shower blocks found every 100 metres or so.

In the area around our hotel (thankfully with running water) I found a heady mix of old and new Beijing - locals playing cards and board games in the street, hole in the wall skewer BBQ's - mixed in with a new wave of cool bars and eateries catering to the afterwork crowd and tourists in equal measure.

While they enjoy their rightful place in China's line-up of tourist attractions - the Hutongs are in rapid decline, making way for the faceless tower blocks which accompany Beijing's rush to modernise - before the city becomes the focus of the worlds attention during next years Olympic Games.

With it's rickshaw tours of historic buildings and new ecomony of cool bars and restaurants, perhaps Banchang will stand a better chance of survival than most. One thing's for sure, even for those that escape the bulldozer - things are changing fast.

We found the best way of getting around Beijing was to escape the traffic jams by doing as the locals do. Taking to 2 wheels we explored the city by bike, hitting some of the city's must see sights like the Forbidden City and Tianammen Square. You can catch all the photos by clicking here.

Most remarkable of all was some of the food - but I think I'll leave that for another post ...