Trans Siberian Travel report, Part 1

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Depart Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport)

I had booked this trip individually (no tourgroup) but when I arrived at the departure gate, I noticed a lot of hand luggage bearing the tag of my travel agency, so I quietly informed myself as to what was going on. Apparently a group of 11 was joining the same tour I was going to make. No problem you would think, had not this tour been organized by VIVA (Dutch ladies magazine) But to be honest; in the end it all worked out & we had a lot of fun together. As this was a budget trip My travel agency looked for the cheapest available flight to Beijing, and that price went to Tarom; Romania's national pride!

Transit stop

Normally we were supposed to have a 2 hour stop in Bucharest (and change to another plane we found out) but in the end we stopped for over 8 hours, but that wasn't too much of a problem. In the transit hall a Spanish group was running lose & singing wonderful songs. The local beer bottles are even bigger then our own Grolsh (Dutch beer brand) so the evening turned our really good. An attempt was made to teach me a card game but that did not really (really not) work out.

Legroom

After our departure from Bucharest it turned out that the Romanians have a different opinion about the word "Legroom". It was reduced to a minimum and for a tall person like myself this was very uncomfortable. But I held out till Karachi (Pakistan) where we were allowed out for an hour, which immediately turned into 2 1/2 hours.

Luckily when returning to the plane I found out my neighbor had left us in Karachi (which makes sense, as he was Pakistani) so now we had 3 seats for 2 people which gave us the chance to stretch our legs a bit. From Karachi to Beijing I was reasonably comfortable. The most spectacular thing during this flight was crossing the Himalaya, how incredibly beautiful those snowy mountains!

Arrival Beijing

At 10 PM (local time) we finally reached Beijing. I was expecting a tough border control (checking for unwanted literature etc...) but it turned out to be nothing at all, we could just walk through.
Later I found out that this was probably because I had joined the VIVA group & they let groups through easily. A person travelling alone is checked a bit more thorough but it still isn't the tough border control you would expect in a communist country.
(Talking about border crossings the hardest one was while entering Germany but we haven't reached that point of the story yet)

A Taxi ride

After leaving the airport we made an attempt to understand the Beijing public transport, but finally decided to take taxis to the hotel.
And what a taxi ride it was: after 3 Km we had a direct hit; wham...hit a proceeding car (also a taxi) and I hit my face on the windscreen.
In the end it wasn't so bad; my glasses were a bit bend and the VIVA girl next to me had only a split lip.
A short explanation regarding Beijing taxis: they have a strong iron grill between the driver & passengers section. Probably this is for the driver's safety but if you sit in the front, next to the driver nobody objects either.

A Bicycle ride through Beijing

Of course I visited the usual attractions such as temples, the Forbidden City and naturaly the great wall. All these things are very interesting but what pleased me most was the two days I rented a bicycle & just started cycling around aimlessly.

You see a lot of things the transfer with a bike, see this picture: A man, a bike and 8 piglets !!! To ride your bike in a Beijing rush hour traffic is an unforgettable experience.

Private cars are few & far between, that leaves public transport taxi's and bicycles. One of the most brilliant traffic rules is that in case of an accident between a car & a bicycle, the car gets all the blame, no discussion possible.

Like I mentioned; I explored Beijing by bicycle and often I ended up in the slums. Whenever you stop in an area like that for a drink or a bite to eat, little kids who look you over very carefully immediately surround you. As a tourist you don't have to worry too much about criminality in those slum areas. (That's of course because of the heavy penalties on crime)

Birdcage in a tree

A nice thing was to see so many people in the park (and they're not walking the dog, as dogs belong in the frying pan according to the Chinese). No the Chinese take their feathered friends to the park, in little birdcages which they hang up the trees.

On these 3 pictures you can see what people do in the park. It's nice to sit on a park bench & watch the world go by.

The wall

Of course I made a trip to the great wall, brilliant to see that wall winding away over the hills to the horizon; really impressive.

As far as my visit to the wall is concerned; I was extremely lucky. The VIVA group of 11 had been split in two groups of 7 and 4 respectively. For the 7 everything had been arranged (into the minibus, visit a temple, little story, into the bus, next stop.... etc) and the other for had a similar arrangement to my own (only hotel & transport) The 7 visited the wall on Tuesday and due to fog visibility was less then 50m. I joined the other 4 on Friday and it was a wonderfully clear day.

The square
The famous Tianmin square is quite an experience as it's a "must" for country folk to visit. It's full of Chinese tourists taking pictures of each other.
I went there with 4 others from the VIVA group, including 2 good looking girls who were asked many times to have their picture taken together with Chinese toddlers, while the parents stood there giggling like schoolgirls.

At the same time you remember those TV images of a few years ago; a documentary I saw a while ago about the subject was pretty impressive. A lot of tragedies took place on this square.

Temples & the Forbidden City

	Temples, temples, there are a lot of them in Beijing. Nice to visit and of course to watch the Chinese take pictures of each other.
	Not to forget the Forbidden City; brilliant! A week before my departure I had rented the video "the last emperor" and I felt myself walking around in the movie.

Dinner in Beijing
Food...yes that's part of it, and Beijing is a paradise when it comes to eating out. Plenty of food stalls on the streets, yummy, yummy...(a word of advice is here in place, our Western stomach are not used to local food cooked in the streets > so I had a one day fast living on apples & mineral water) But yes; what do you expect if you want to try everything!
A very nice thing is to take a group to a local restaurant outside the city center, of course there are some communication problems but the food was great!
When you go for a meal with 5 people you get served 5 dishes and everybody gets their chopsticks. Then you just start: a bite of this, a bite of that...
It even went so far that when the fourth person ordered a dish that somebody else had ordered before, the waiter took charge and told them that dish had already been ordered.

Traditional dress

At the Forbidden City you have the chance to have your picture taken in traditional dress. 3 VIVA girls did so, and a Chinese family had their little son photographed as the last emperor.

After that the poor boy had to have his picture taken with those 3 crazy Westerners. Everybody enjoyed it: the parents, the Viva girls, the bystanders but I wonder about the boy... Just look at his face....

Kentuckey Fried Checken
It's hard to really get in contact with the locals, you never seem to get much further then your age, profession etc...Whenever you tried to talk about what happened on the square people turned away.
A few months after my trip I visited an exhibition of "world press photo" here they showed the execution of two traitors who were convicted of violence during the Tianmin square uprising in 1989.
When you look at those pictures you immediately have a lot more understanding why nobody wants to discuss politics with foreigners,
Sometimes it's possible though; two boys approached me near Kentucky Fried Chicken and their eyes spoke volumes, so I played the rich tourist & invited them for a meal. For us the prices are very reasonable but once you realize that a meal in this fast food joint costs about 10% of the average monthly wage, you can imagine what a treat this was for those boys. (It's as if we would spend 150$ on a big Mac). When you looked around in this fast food restaurant you saw a well to do public that -according to these boys- all belong to the upper echelons of the party.

Part 2 of the report