The For-spitten' City

To save a few togrogs (Mongolian pennies) we abandoned the traditional Trans-Mongolian route and took a local train to the Chinese border town of Erlian. From here it was a minivan to the bus station for a 14 hour Kung-Fu-sleeper-bus journey to Beijing. This was a rather uncomfortable experience for those of an average height (say 6 foot 1 and a half ish) as the accommodation consisted of compact Chinese-stylee bunk-coffins.

After the solitude of the Gobi Desert, Beijing proved to be a noisy bombardment of the senses; shopkeepers, rickshaw pilots, random guys on the street all clamouring for attention:

"Hullo, come look"
"Hullo, where you go?"
"Hullo, you buy CDDVD?"

There were 2 things it was impossible to escape from whilst in the city. Firstly the staring - not just a furtive wee glance - proper full-blown, neck-craning, google-eyed staring. Secondly the spitting - not just a furtive wee spit - proper full-blown, throat-hacking groggers which were then propelled indiscriminately across the streets.

Nonetheless, we sidestepped the spittle and put up with the staring (posing for a few photos and signing a few autographs on the way) to do all the usual touristy things that one does whilst in Beijing:

The Great Wall was duly conquered.



Every nook and cranny of Tiannamenn Square and the Forbidden City were explored.


We hired a couple of single gear boneshakers to check out the city's alleyways and parks and to join the other 8,999,998 bicycles in Beijing.


We took part in a "most number of people in a bus" world record attempt, which was a particularly unpleasant experience as most of our co-record-attemptees seemed unfamiliar with the use of deodorant (sorry no pic as I couldn't move my arms)

Assorted street food was sampled; kebabs, veg pancakes, roasted corn, Chinese hamburgers etc. - carefully avoiding the "tasty" looking dog-penis on a stick treats.



Oh, and we went for a Chinese every night!