Ah, Beijing, ancient capitol of an ancient race with tourists coming from all corners of The Almighty’s globe to wonder at her Forbidden City, Mao’s Tianamen Square and the Great Wall of China. City of history, city of the Olympics, city of smells. This last quality led to the rather amusing quote above, as spoken by a random American at the Summer Palace. Even though Hannah and me were in the middle of a small fracas, we couldn’t help but laugh (or at least Hannah couldn’t, I misheard it and though someone was taking the piss out of my hat. You’ll see why in the pictures). The smell of human excrement wafted amongst the shanty-town hutongs and mixed with the smells of barbequing lamb and baking bread. It really was quite a smell.
Beyond the smell were the sights. As our hostel was but an aborted female baby’s throw from Tiananmen, we started there. It’s a square. It is big. Not much else to say really apart from the fact that it was swarming with hawkers trying to sell all sorts of tat (Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, Chairman Mao watches, Chairman Mao scarves, Chairman Mao’s Little Book of Loving etc etc). Some even went so far as to impart art student personas upon themselves and try and force us to go to “Art Exhibitions” where, according to Lonely Planet we weren’t so tired as to follow them, they try to sell you hugely overpriced “art”. These people did not leave us alone for the majority of the trip, so much so that I made several friends; Buy Now, Real Cheap and Fuck You.
The highlights in Beijing were the Great Wall and the Summer Palace. The Forbidden City was nice, but there are only so many temples and halls one can take. The Summer Palace is exactly what it sounds like; a retreat for fat Emperors hoping the summer air would aid erection. As we went in winter, the huge manmade lake in the centre of it all was completely frozen over with lots of mad Chinese skating around on it like so many lobotomised ice skating people.
The Great Wall, or at least the section we visited, was an hour’s drive from the city. Rather than taking one of the extortionate tours (280 RMB=nearly £20) we got there by ourselves using the extreme cunning we had developed from avoiding Beijing’s infestations of art students. In the end, it cost us 7 RMB each way (about 50p). Once there, we were suitably impressed. Several times while walking along the 15km long section I would stare out at the scenery, imagining a Mongol hoard screaming through the bracken in a bloodlust. In fact, the only Mongolians present were the ones avidly trying to sell me pashminas. After trekking more than the 15km (the entrance was in the middle of the section, forcing us to retrace our steps if we wanted to see the other end) we were absolutely knackered, the cold had numbed and blistered my lips and we wanted to go home.
This was probably my one real experience with bartering. I had seen a lot of Chinese people wearing rather spiffy greatcoats and decided I wanted in on the action. Sure enough, several of the tourist stalls were selling them. The first person I enquired with gave us a price of 150 RMB (£10) but worked herself down to 80 as we walked off. The second offered us an initial price of 580 RMB (well over £40) and I must say I stood a little gobsmacked. She insisted that the other vendor must have said $80. Bollocks. Anyway, there was no way I was going to pay that must for a coat worth less than my dodgy hat so we made to leave. The lady in the store wasn’t having it. After several minutes bartering, and several actual attempts to leave by myself, we got her down to 130 RMB, just less than a tenner. So I said OK and felt rather proud of my bartering skills. Of course, I should have been watching her more closely as she put it into a bag. When we got home we realised she’d swapped the perfectly serviceable coat I’d tried on with one who’s buttons were so mismatched as to make it basically unwearable. The cow.
No comments:
Post a Comment