Seesea Travel Blog

Travel Location: Beijing,China

From Wuyuan we headed back to Hangzhou (having booked in advance) and stayed there a few days. Ian is not really a city person but hangzhou has a really nice area called west lake which is very similar to the summer palace in Beijing. We then got a night train to Beijing which was suprisingly comfortable. We hadnt planned on staying long in Beijing but the May day holiday came up and it was recommended we go nowhere (no tanks seen in tinnamen square though Jacky Chan did sing) We spent our first day in the not so Forbidden palace which was very busy with tourists in the main areas, though could be really quite quiet in other parts. Our second day we went to the Summer palace (where the Emperors went during the hot summer months) this was much nicer than the forbiden city. the next couple of days were split with walking around some of the older parts of Beijing, shopping on silk street and going to the famous kung fu show where monks would split slabs on there backs while laying on a bed of nais using a sledge hammer. It was the young kids who really made the show they were dextrous enough to pull off no handed backflips using there heads and when they would fight with weapons you could see they were getting more than a bit carried away. We then planned our great wall trip. we wanted to go on a weekday to avoid the crowds as well as an area where alot less people go. (we also wanted to do something a bit more special and sleep the night on the wall). We decided to trek on the wall from Jinshaling to Simati sleeping on the wall near Simati. It was quite a good job that we planned on sleeping on the wall we started the trek quite late in the day and many areas are like a near vertical obsticle course, the wall has recently been repaired in places but rubble was still all over the place. During the evening we slept in one of the guard towers (which Ian said made pretty good bird hides.) We had great views of an Amur falcon here. We continued the trek early that morning and we passed the toll bridge and entrance gates before they were open so we didnt have to pay a second time. From Beijing we got a train to xi’an we wanted a sleeper but they were all booked for three more days so we got a cheap hard seat. This was the worsed journey of our lives.

Jacky Chan did sing