Booked during the British Airways January Sale, flew into
Terminal 3 of Beijing airport from Heathrow on the oldest, most uncomfortable
747 anyone has ever flown on. Looked up the registration and it was 24 years
old. No sign of a refurb or re-covered
seats, terrible. Beijing airport T3 had
an unsurprising smell of wet cement. We landed at 0945 to a deserted terminal,
however, still too an age to get through the 3 open gates out of the 30
immigration gates and took forever to
get our luggage. Taxi tout HELL!!!!!!
They are relentless, our hotel was close to Tiananmen Square, 40kms from the
airport, and was advised not to get a licensed cab but an airport authorised
long distance cab. We did and paid
approx £50. Got to the hotel, weather
was approx 28C and very foggy, not smoggy, but foggy. Finally managed to check in and first thing
was to have a shower.
Hotel Beijing Shangda International was comfortable, had 2
restaurants and a bar. We had a 2 roomed
suite with separate sitting area and wired internet. Facebook, Twitter and Google are banned from
China, but there are plenty of Proxy websites that can get you access for not
much money at all if you miss your social networking! The restaurants were very good, fresh tasty
local food cooked to perfection. They even give you a knife and fork as a back
up! One Chinese Restaurant and one
Japanese, very nice. Breakfast was most
excellent, flash cards so you could show the chef you wanted fried eggs x 2 and
back bacon. There was also a vast
selection of cold meats and cheeses, fruits and Chinese noodle dishes. One flash card said Chicken Feet! I made sure
that never went in my hand.
We did a day out to the Great Wall using the travel desk in
the hotel. £75 for your own personal guide with limo or £55 for a coach tour. No brainer really! Amazing is all I can say. Walking along the wall, you are walking on
the shoulders of giants. People that died while building the wall were buried
in it vertically, hence the saying.
There is a stone with engraving by Mao Zedong saying you are not a man
until you have walked on the Great Wall of China. Well we are men now, however, the gradients
are sometimes as great as 65 degrees, very steep steps. On the way we stopped at Mingh Tombs. Very
interesting, but, take a hat, it is very hot and exposed to sunshine. Word of warning, on the way back to the
hotel, the guide gives the impression that the Jade Museum, Silk Museum, and
Doctor Tea are all part of your tour. They are not, guides get paid for taking
tourists there and get a commission on the hard sell too. Be very careful in the Tea Tasting, you get 4
free tastes and asked if you would like to try some better ones for a cost. A
very expensive cost too.
As you do, and can, in China, we had an overnighter to Xi’an
to view the Terracotta Army. Bullet train in business class at 300km/h was a
very enjoyable experience. 5 hours to
get there and just 4.5 to get back.
Didn’t stop so many times on the return.
We stayed at Sofitel on Renmin Square, exceptional hotel in exceptional
grounds. We got there too late to go see
the Army, so booked a private tour with the concierge (always worth their
weight in gold) to pick us up at 0700 the following morning.
Spot on time our driver arrives and whisks us off to the
museum, a drive of about 50 minutes.
Once there our guide met us to take us on our tour of the 4 buildings
housing the soldiers. This is a once in a lifetime event, to see this
spectacular sight, therefore, I fully recommend to get a private tour. Ours
including the car was just £90, we got there early, no crowds or queues and our
guide had some special accesses to the site that large party/DIY guide would
not get access to. We were there for
about 3.5 hours. The driver dropped us back at the HST station and we boarded
our train heading to Beijing.
Next we did an overnighter to Shanghai, again the first
bullet train out of Beijing South station, of course business class, for the 5
hours trip at break neck speeds. To
think 10 years ago there were 0 (zero) miles of high speed train track in
China, now there are hundreds of thousands and still building. Arrrived Shanghai approx midday, got the
underground to the hotel and had a shower.
Here we stayed in the Sofitel Shanghai Hyland on the famous and very busy
Nanjing Road. It was baking hot and we
had loads to do. Started the afternoon
going to the Oriental Pearl Tower across the river, where we had something to
eat. Went to the Bund area and low and
behold, we found an Irish Pub!!!
The next day, we were booked on the last train to Beijing
(Bei = North and Jing = capital) so we got started on our day. Went to the Peoples Park where you could have
ballroom dancing classes, then, just for a change and to say we did it, we went
to Pudong Airport on the world’s fastest and longest Maglev train. It is capable of doing 554km/h however, it
only goes to 300 km/h. Don’t know why. The nuisance on the streets are the
locals shouting ‘you want watch? You want lady massage? You want shop?’ as if
anyone will ever say yes, they are relentless and very annoying.
Back in North Capital we have just a few days left, so
finished off our sightseeing and explored the ex-pat area of Sanlitun
village. Full of very expensive designer
shops, but very good restaurants and plenty of bars, well it is Expat area!
Airport express to Terminal 3, checked in, security checked
3 times and we’re in the lounge waiting for BA38 to depart. This is the flight number that landed short
at Heathrow in 2007.
In summary: Well worth it, however, spend more time in
Shanghai and Xi’an and less in Beijing.
