Bye to Beijing...

After our last day in Beijing (well, until June anyway) and having bought our fill of cheap and far from authentic clothing (a pair of Etnies for 9quid and a North Face jacket for 11quid) we had a farewell meal with our fellow Trans-Siberian adventurers, and what better way to say goodlbye than by feasting on Peking Duck - although Daniele and others were a little put off by our 'ringside' seat viewing the chefs prepare the duck for our meal - a little more authentic than ordering from the Choi Lee (Princey - you'd be in heaven here!).

We took the overnight sleeper from Beijing West train station, a collosal beast of a railway station which stands up in size to Heathrow let alone being only one of Beijing's many railway gateways. We arrived at the gate in good time where a sizeable queue had already begun to form for our train - just in the nick of time, we thought. After waiting for half an hour or so the number of people queuing for our train continued to grow and grow and grow. When the annoucement was made for the train to board there was the most unbelievable surge of bodies towards a tiny number of gates, all desparately running for the train to get the best seats in 'hard seat' class for the overnight journey - it was amazing that so many people could fit onto one train! Luckily we had 'hard sleeper' tickets meaning we had reserved beds for the night in another carriage - not that we had much sleep mind you - I was fortunate enough to have bed opposite the Chinese world snoring champion on his national tour of the country - it was a great honour to meet such an accompolished athelete - boy can that guy make some noise!

We arrived in a city called Datong, famed for its Hanging Monastery and for the Yungang Caves, and chanced upon a small group of English speaking travellers and joined them for a tour. First stop the Hanging Monastery...

This unbelievable building attached to the side of the cliff was originally constructed in this way so the flood waters would not destroy it every year. The Chinese Government have since damned the river further upstream and now it is literally 'hanging' onto the side of the cliff as if suspended in mid-air. Quite an amazing sight, but more amazing was climbing up inside it although my fear of heights was not amused it was a great experience and these photos barely do it justice...

Next onto the Yungang Caves featuring some 50,000 carvings, also of Buddist origin. These carvings stretch over 1km but many of them have been irreparably damaged due to coal dust deposits eating away at the designs - the coal transportation route has now been moved elsewhere but much of the damage has already been done. Many impressive carvings remain though and thankfully we had amazing weather to wander round and view the caves.








At one point, our guide pointed out some carvings of the first Buddha at different stages of his life, but parts of his adult life had been cemented over. When we asked why, she replied in a hushed and slightly nervous voice, 'Our father, you know the father of the New China? He covered them in the 50s as they were not suitable for children.' She didn't want to say his name, but it was pretty clear what she was talking about. So much for the 'Cultural Revolution' Chairman Mao.









Before leaving Datong we did battle with the local travel agency who were determined to make us stay in Datong overnight, which apart from the sights we had already seen was a pretty average city, and after telling us several hundred times that there was no train outta their one horse town and that we should stay in a very nice hotel that night which they highly recommended (presumably owned by their brother/uncle etc), they eventually produced two hard sleeper tickets heading in the direction we wanted - thank you very much CITS Datong!

Before getting on our train we found a place to eat, and using the usual tactics (look for somewhere where a lot of locals are eating) we ventured into a likely looking place that looked suitably inviting. Bear in mind that up to now we had been in the urban jungle of Beijing which is fast becoming more and more westernised in time for the Olympics and where there is usually an English menu or something that passes as one - not so in Datong! We sat down and without even having a chance to catch our breath the waitresses had placed several small dishes before us with garlic, chillies, noodles, vegetables etc and then waited with clipboard in hand for our order, except there we no menus, not even in Chinese.

Now, I've mastered the art of ordering beer now in two new languages (Russian and Chinese) and I even know my first Mandarin character - the symbol for 'bar' (aren't you proud!), but this was a whole new ball-game! We eventually figured out that we had ambled into a restaurant serving Mongolian Hot-Pot, a local speciality, and once we had overcome the 'no menu' hurdle and ordered a bunch of meat, noodles and green stuff in which we were shown to dip into either of the two sections of bubbling broth before us, we had a great meal at an amazing price - oh and we got the beer I ordered as well, I knew my skills would come through in the end!

We boarded our train at a yawn-inducing 23:55 and encountered the same crush of people rushing for the train. Luckily the champion snorer was on a different leg of his tour and we actually got some sleep. We were reliably informed that the train would arrive at a city called Shangqui at 18.10 from where would be able to catch a bus to our intended destination, Kaifeng. How hard can it be? We assumed that although this 'city' was not listed in the Lonely Planet (nor was there much on Google) that it would be a simple enough task to find a bus for the relatively short journey to Kaifeng. Piece of piss, we thought!

At around 18.00, prior to our scheduled arrival, we were mildly concerned when all around us were fields, the occasional cow, and then a few more fields. No problem, maybe it's a bit out of the way, we thought. At 18.10 we arrived amongst what looked like a set of diused warehouses and things then made an interesting turn for the bizarre!

We disembarked from the train and as we walked out of the train station - BAM! - people, everywhere - absolutely thousands of them, and not just people but cars, buses, taxis, bicycles, scooters, rickshaws, cats, dogs, children - the works! Not so easy to find a bus after all, but after a difficult English Chinese conversation a couple of helpful locals took pity on us and our bemused faces and escorted us to the bus station, which was only a short walk away and if it hadn't been for the equivalent to the population of Guernsey being crammed into one small marketplace we might have seen the 'long distance bus station' sign clearly printed in English! We were herded onto the bus and made the two hour journey to Kaifeng, along the way being treated to the Chinese equivalent of a cross between Police Academy and a Carry-On film on DVD we arrived in equally bustling Kaifeng.

Our helpful taxi driver took us straight to a LP recomended hotel, weaving his way through the back streets with liberal use of his horn (a regular feature in China!) and after dumping our bags we ventured into the legendary night market of Kaifeng. Much like the food market in Beijing - but much less commercial - everything and anything was on sale, mostly on sticks, and we treated ourselves to a couple of 'meat pockets' consisting of pitta bread, pork, seaweed, bean sprouts, soy sauce and chilli, all washed down with a large bottle to Tsing Dao beer - awesome! Daniele enjoyed a large sticky apple floating in hot syrupy apple juice and a large bag of multi-coloured popcorn (while I had a couple more meat pockets!) and all for less than 1quid!

Next we head West for Zhengzhou for a trip to the Shaolin Temple to the visit the monks and indulge in a bit of kung-fu viewing - can't wait!!

This is Kaifeng...