Thailand Beach Prep

Beijing had these great little workout areas randomly situated around the city. We decided to hit up the elliptical machines for a few minutes to get the beach bods ready for Thailand - it was too little, too late.

北京

From Athens, we had a four hour flight back to Terminal 5 in London’s Heathrow airport. During our six hour layover, we managed to accumulate half a library’s worth of books at one of the terminal bookstores, and also got some serious lounging in on their plush couches. Being that we had a grueling nine-hour flight ahead of us, we made a stop over at the British Airways customer service desk to inquire about our seating arrangements. Since they speak our language in London Town, we were able to strategize with a really nice customer service guy who advised us on his take of our optimal seating arrangement for a flight of that duration. It was one of the better red-eyes we have been on thus far because the two of us were able to stretch out over a four person row of seats. We didn’t get as much sleep as we should have because we spent most of our time watching some newly released movies. Haley’s high-pressure sales techniques convinced Jim to watch Mama Mia. He then had to watch a second movie to get the songs unstuck from his head while Haley took advantage of three seats and slept.

The Beijing airport was huge yet seemed surprisingly empty. There could have been two million people in there for all we knew. That’s how big the thing was. We briskly moved through customs and then took the metro into the city center. When we were in Chile some fellow travelers told us of their experiences in Beijing and how they had such a difficult time navigating around the city. They warned us that all English stopped once you leave the airport. We didn’t experience that at all though. The metro was in Chinese and English and plenty of signs, menus and people here and there spoke it as well. Maybe the city had really made strides to integrate English in preparation for the Olympics and floods of foreigners.

As soon as we emerged from the metro en route to our hotel, we were ambushed by pushy rickshaw drivers. “Hellooo, rickshaw, hutong tour, where are you going?, rickshaw.” A mob of them followed us a half-mile down the road, before we finally turned down the street to our hotel. It didn’t matter how many times or ways you said no – they just wouldn’t go away. Our hotel, Bamboo Gardens, turned out to be a great pick. We booked it on short notice back in July when we were under the gun to get our visas. It was located in the Xiaoshiqiao Hutong, a little above the main city center, but within a reasonable walking distance. It was a traditional place yet very modern. Complete with a huge garden (hence the name), internet in every room and an awesome heater to welcome us in from the cold each day.

Our arrival day was very smoggy and stagnate and a face mask would have been useful (we really didn’t see that many – maybe a few dozen or so during five days). After getting situated and catching a power nap, we headed to the Drum and Bell Towers that were near our hotel. These were formerly used to drum or bell the hours of the day. We then walked a lap around Houhai Lake and saw what we guessed to be a local swim club swimming in the cold and not so clear waters. These people were die-hards. We weren’t sure if they were a polar bear club, but the lake freezes in the winter so they must be getting in as many laps as they can before that happens. We explored one of the nearby hutongs and then went back down to the lakeside for dinner. Jim had a lovely jasmine tea that tasted a little too much like bubble bath for his liking.

Day two was a day of walking. We visited the Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square, the Wangfujing shopping district and also their local lunch market complete with scorpions on a stick. We also walked through the famous night market where both locals and tourists come to find dinner. This thing stretches on for quite a ways and is stocked with seahorses, bugs, starfish, meats, dumplings, you name it and they had it. We opted for dinner elsewhere as the smells are enough to make your stomach turn even without sampling anything. We were pretty impressed with Beijing’s Forbidden City. After an overdose on medieval/ gothic architecture all through Europe, the interesting shapes and bold colors were a nice change.

The following day, we took an organized tour to the Great Wall, which also included a tour of the Ming Tombs – the Emperor’s burial grounds. Our tour guide was very helpful and taught us a lot about the sites as well as Chinese culture and customs. Unfortunately, our tour had a few detours that we weren’t expecting. Detour #1 was a visit to Jade factory where they gave us a brief spiel about jade and then try to sell it to us. Detour #2 was a Chinese Medical center where white coated doctors taught us about all the benefits of Chinese herbs. They then wanted to check our pulses (supposedly they can learn a lot by a pulse… supposedly), and then wrote expensive prescriptions for all your ailments - ”we take cash or credit cards.” Some suckers fell head over heals for this sham – we opted out of both side bars in disgust. We had read about these “detours” in our guide books, but thought our hotel recommended service wouldn’t lead us astray. The Great Wall was great but a little odd. We visited the Badaling section and it was kind of all the things you would expect – huge, steep to climb, long, middle of nowhere. What we just don’t understand is why they would build and rebuild for a thousand years this huge wall on top of steep mountains that no one could possibly cross even if a wall weren’t in the way. Those Mongolians must have been really scary and half mountain goat. Strangely, we rode a roller coaster to access the Wall, which was a lot more fun than hiking up to it.

Dinner that night was at Hutong Pizza – some of the best pizza we’ve eaten east of NYC.

The next day, to avoid language difficulties, we opted for a simple breakfast at Starbucks. We then walked through Jingshan Park which gave us a good vantage point to see the city. Informally called coal hill, it was man made from the material dug to create the huge moat that surrounds the Forbidden City.

We reversed our course back to the airport early the next airport (rickshaw drivers were still sleeping), to catch our plane to our next Asia stop – Thailand.

A few other things:

- There are a lot of public bathrooms throughout Beijing. This is normally a good thing. But when you can smell a bathroom before you can see it, that is not a good thing.

- Beijingers spit often. Not discreet little spits. These are full-on, flem-clearing, loogies. Not sure exactly why they do it. We’ll get back to you.

- Jim got a ridiculously good haircut from little hole in the wall barber shop. It took about four minutes and cost $3.