China from Russia Overland

The Transcontinental Adventure Continues…

Our train journey from Irkutsk in Russia to Beijing took 2 nights and 3 days. Out of the window we saw the snow disappear, the vegetation get greener and then a sudden change in architecture style and colour after we crossed the border. The Chinese border town is much more impressive than the Russian counterpart, no doubt a sign of China’s growing economic wealth and status as a world leader.

Our secret little part of The Great Wall

Our train arrived at 5am into Beijing, but already there were hundreds of people around the station. We spent most of the first day a little overwhelmed with the sights, sounds and smells and craziness of this huge city with its millions of people. We wandered around trying to find an English bookshop to buy a phrasebook – an essential in China. Due to the tonal nature of the languages, speaking the little Mandarin we had learnt was painfully slow, and we needed the assistance of written translation for when smiles and hand gestures are not enough.

We had 5 days in Beijing, mostly doing the touristy things and enjoying the warmth after being in Russia. It was nice to wear just 1 layer of clothing instead of up to 5.

Tiananmen Square and the Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) are absolutely huge, very impressive, but also much visited. There are Chinese tourists everywhere, in huge groups, with their matching coloured hats, flags or t-shirts.

We went on a tour organised by our hostel to a ’secret’ part of the Great Wall, which we just expected to be slightly less crowded with tourists, but actually it turned out that our small group were the only people there. The advert for the tour stated it was ‘only for fit able-bodied people’, though our tour guide was a small 68 year old woman who said that she did the 3 mile walk every day! - The Chinese are fit.

The great Imperial Palace

It is pretty easy to find vegetarian food in China, despite the array of animals that are eaten in the country. A night-time food market we visited in Beijing had a particularly unappealing menu including; dog, centipede and sheep penis.Most food shops sell packets of miscellaneous meat, we saw quite a few people eating chicken feet, chewing on them and then spitting out bits of bone or nail. Spitting is very common in China, and not just with male youths (as in the UK), you may easily see a business women walking down the street then suddenly loudly clear her throat and spit on the floor, sometimes just near where you’re walking.

Other strange foods we came across included sweetcorn, aduki bean and mung bean ice lollies, and a packet of berries labelled as ‘natural health fruit’ which sounded good until we noticed the ingredients included lots of sugar, salt, aspartame (artificial sweetener) and MSG - artificial flavours and added sugar are everywhere.

We also tried Sichuan peppercorns, I liked them, but some people describe them as having an aftertaste of bleach, they can also numb your mouth as well (they’re apparently used as anaesthetic by rural dentists).

Bikes (both motorised and person-powered) are everywhere in China. We saw some strange things being transported on 2-wheels, like 2 large panes of glass or about 50 pillows piled high (a nice landing if you fall off though!).

The Golden Summit of Mt Emei

After Beijing we took a 36 hour train South-West to Chengdu in the Sichuan province, a more laid back city than Beijing. We stayed in an excellent hostel (‘Sim’s Cozy Garden Hostel’), which as well as having excellent veggie food and great facilities, is run by an incredibly nice family. They recommended a vegetarian mock-meat restaurant to us - some of the dishes were actually a little too realistic for my liking, but most were pretty tasty. Sim and his family arrived whilst we were there and even bought their favourite dish for us.

We went to the Panda breeding centre, we were hoping to go to the nearby nature reserve to see pandas in the wild but they had been moved after a big earthquake late last year. Also the nature reserve would’ve been mostly closed due to panda ‘falling in love time’ as it’s referred to by the tourist board! The pandas have lots of space at the centre, but it still felt a bit zoo-like, and I didn’t like the baby pandas being panda-knapped for a few minutes when someone wanted to have their photo taken with one, even if they are willing to pay £120 to do so!

In Chengdu we also visited various Buddhist and Taoist temples, hired bicycles, cycled around and drank green tea in the parks - an excellent way to relax on a hot day, if you can find a quiet spot away from the old folks doing their dancey Tai-chi to very loud music.

The monkey statue at Mt Emei

Not far from Chengdu, we visited the holy Buddhist mountain Emei Shan, which is just over 3000m high.  We climbed it over a 3 days, sleeping in a very basic guesthouse with no warm water the first night, a temple with wooden planks covered in a sheet for a bed the second night, then in a hotel the third night at the summit. We wanted to see the sunrise from the summit, but it was so misty you couldn’t see a thing, a bit of a shame, but we did get to see the famous ‘Sea of Clouds’ and a nice sunset the previous evening.

Mt Emei has steps all the way up, over 30 temples along the way, some highly impressive rock carvings and the huge 46m high Buddha statue/temple at the top - it must have taken years to build. If you are unfit, injured or just lazy and rich you can pay to be carried up or down the mountain in a stretcher-chair carried by 2 guys over their shoulders (though oddly there isn’t a weight-to-price system).

Another great thing about Emei Shan is the wild monkeys living on the mountain, they pickpocket food from people, then jump up a tree or onto a roof to eat their haul. I had a packet of sultanas in my pocket that I tried to hide, but I wasn’t sly enough, this big monkey ran up to me and grabbed my leg, and I had to shake it off - it was pretty funny…after the event (I managed to keep my sultanas though).

The incredible Mt Emei rock carvings

There are many hilarious ‘Chinglish’ signs around China, some of my favourites from Mt Emei are:

• “Fresh air is naturally health”’ and
• “After urinating breath fresh air” (both in a public toilet)
• “Slip Carefully”
• “Monkeys are an important member in biosphere, the protection of which is to protect human beings ourselves” (wise words indeed!)

After coming down the mountain (we cheated and got the bus down), we visited the nearby town of Leshan and the famous Giant Buddha that is carved into a rock face nearby, the statue is over 40m high and took 80 years to build! That’s dedication.

We then headed back to Chengdu for a few days rest and to organise an official tour into and through Tibet, an organised tour being the only way you are allowed in. A few days later and Tibet permits in hand we boarded train that would take us to the ‘rooftop of the world’….