Hello Everyone!

Or perhaps I should say ni hao..we’ve only been in china for 3 days but we’ve already done so much that it feels as though we’ve been here for much longer.

Upon arrival caught the shuttle bus from Beijing airport without any difficulty… Watching all the other westerners head to the hugely overpriced taxis that go from the airport whilst we took the bus with all the chinese people gave me that satisfyingly (and admittedly slightly gloating) intrepid feel. We stepped off the bus and had to look for a taxi for the final leg of the journey to our youth hostel. For some reason all genuine taxi driver’s were doing their utmost to avoid us as we tried to flag them down..the only ones offering us a ride were the rather shady looking men who owned battered up metal boxes on wheels that they claimed were taxis regardless of the fact that there was no taxi sign to be seen! I’ve been told that chinese think westerners smell but i didnt realise it was quite that bad! Admittedly, given that we hadn’t slept for 28 hours we were starting to look pretty scary too, not unlike members of the Shaun of the Dead cast you might say.

The next day we were up at six in the morning climbing into an ice covered van with a bunch of people we met at the hostel to do a fantastic 10km trek along the Great wall. The views were awesome and because we chose an area that is less known there were no other tourists in site. To get to the great wall we had to walk through a small chinese village whereby a large number of chinese farmers attached themselves to us and later started trying to flog us useless
books with pictures of the wall, for some of us the only way to escape was to run as fast as we could! That night Amy, our 8 hostel buddies and i headed towards Beijing’s infamous food market. We sampled snake, silk worm, grasshopper, fried prawns, locust, dumplings (containing some very obscure meat..) amongst others and I bought a dog’s penus…I should add i thought he said duck at the time, and before you ask, no i didnt eat it!

Yesterday’s challenge was negotiating our way round beijing’s vast train station and buying a ticket..which is easier said than done when there’s not a chinese/english speaker in site and all writing is in chinese characters. The station is a massive complex teaming with chinese looking for tickets to go on their holiays (we’re nearing the time of the chinese new year), when we finally figured our which line we needed to stand in we had to sharpen our elbows to
get to the ticket booth, this appears to be a country where queing doesn’t exist. Miraculously we got somehow managed to get a ticket..and then tried to decipher the characters to establish if we’d bought one to the right destination! That evening we went out for a huge and delicous meal with a bunch of people we met back at the hostel, and I discovered the best meal ever for all
you none veggies; peking duck (the whole meal cost us 2 pounds each). Unfortunately we also rank rather too much chang beer, after which we had to tipsily negotiate our way round the metro system to get to the train station and narrowly managed to catch our sleeper train to Da Tong.

We chose the hard sleeper class (the cheapest), and were therefore the only foreigners there. The train was packed and as we entered all our fellow passengers watched us curiously, we soon settled in saying ‘Ni hao’ all round and compensating for our inability to speak mandarin with overenthusiastic huge smiles, one chinese man was fascinated by my rough guide book to china, asking to look through all the picures. When you first walk into a hard sleeper carriage first impressions make you believe that you wouldnt be innacurate to use the simily ‘like a can of sardibes’ to describe the way people are packed in, there is a thin coridoor on one side with fold down seats, whilst the rest of the space is taken up by doorless compartments each containing six beds (3 rows stacked on each wall). Expectations of privacy is certainly not something people should illude themselves with when on these trains, however although one is quite exposed I dont understand the warnings of theft/rape that are given in the guide books with reference to travelling on hard sleeper trains in hard seat class, we both felt completely at ease. Apart from the frequent snotting and spitting (not so delightful) our chinese companions were hugely welcoming, eager to help us with our bags and to practice their english with us. In fact
since arriving in China I have been stunned by the kindness and warmth of the chinese people. They always smile at us and are eager to help us, if we ask one person a question we will soon have a whole group surrounding us wanting to contibute.

This morning we arrived in Da Tong, a city which is characterised by heavy smog clouds (all the richer people here wear masks to protect against the pollution which really is intoxicating) coal mining, factories, black snow, frozen rubbish splurging out of full drains on the streets and poverty. We came here to see the Yungao caves (an amazing complex of fourty five caves with huges varying sculptures of buddhas created by various chinese dynasties) and the
hanging temple (a temple set in the side of a cliff supported by nothing other thn thin logs) both of which were excellent. However what made this visit a special experience for me was the view from the bus on the way to the sites.
Its extraordinary to see how some people can live in these conditions, shantih towns consisiting of delapidated buildings whose roofs were made of strw/rubbish lines the bumpy brokenroads. We saw numerous donkey drawn carts carrying newspaper or other rubish that people had salvaged from the waste to use as fuel/housing. It was so sad to see a man sifting though the dirt on the roa side trying to collect peice of coal dropped by the lorries. People cycled on bikes with giant loads 10 times the their size on the back, meandering amongst the very precarious traffic. At the other end of the scale we saw a brand new, gigantic military complex, the communist star displayed proudly on the front. The green military uniformed soldiers are everywhere in this city. The atmosphere in this city and in beijing is unlike aything i’ve known, whereas in the uk, the vast majority of people walking on the streets seem to be walking quickly, or at least with a purpose here it seems that at least half of the popultion here have nothing to o, sitting on the dirty side streets or ambling round on bikes. I find just watching how people live here so much more interesting than seeing the typical tourist attractions. Amy and I spent a couple of hours ambling down beijings back streets way from the neon signs and buzzing atmosphere, here we saw the chinese peoples homes and got to witness how they live outside work..its silly how seeing such common things like watching them do their shopping in a supermarket (although i had trouble not gagging when seeing all the skinned dead dogs strung up) is so facinating.

Anyhow ive rambled on for far too long and Amy, Tom (a random american whose tagging along) and i risk missing our second sleeper train to Pingyao, an apparently much more beautiful city in an old chinese style.

I hope everythings going well for you all and that your having a good time at uni/work/travelling etc. Carly I’m so sorry i havent e-mailed before now..I will make it up with a letter one of these days, I hope your ok anyway 🙂

Take care and I’ll e-mail you all again soon,

Love Ruth xx