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We arrived in Guangzhou and were immediately taken aback at the vast array of leather jackets abound in communist China. Our first taste of China was of the very stylish Shamian Island to the south of Guangzhou. Its a very relaxed, cool island full of travellers and provides a pretty soft introduction into China. Full of old men playing Chinese Checkers and old women seemingly fighting eachother, under the pretense of a game of Mahzong, which was pretty amusing. Our first night on Shamian Island, we hit the classy joints of Babyface and Soho and experienced at first hand some very bizzare nightlife, full of Chinese club singers singing western music badly, trying to pull off anything from the Clash to Eminem and in most cases failing miserably. Not that the never less than enthused young Chinese hipsters minded a jot. With a couple of old Cantonese numbers thrown in for good measure, this led to a merry cocktail of song, dance and rice wine.
Our first day proper in China was spent doing what tourists do, as we headed straight on the very impressive subway to Yuexiu Park, which houses among other monuments the Five Rams Statue and Zhenhai Tower, as well as the brilliantly named Waterfall of Intellect and Elegance. Coupled with our viewing of the Pillars of Wisdom but two days previously, we felt sufficiently enlightened to plan our trip up to Beijing the following day. Before that tho we had our final taste of the varities and vulgarities of nighlife in Guangzhou, with a saturday night of some crazy chinese dancing, lots of strippers and a ridiculously high standard table football match! Proving just how masculine punch and i are, theres no doubt that the China vs India table football match attracted by far the most attention....
Our journey to Beijing consisted of a 24 hour train ride across approximately half of this vast country. After i had finally convinced Punch it was a small detour worth making to see a wall and a square, we booked our train and made our way to the station. By far the worst and most stressful part of our journey was the half hour preceeding the departure of our train, as we arrived with 15 mins to go, in a massive rush and desparately seeking guidance as to where we should catch our train from. In stepped a man who can only be described as a mentalist (tho at the time we had many another name for this w***er) who quite literally grabbed us and was hell bent on putting any possible obstacle in our path to us getting the train, such as sending us the wrong way, telling us to go to the 7th floor when it should have been the second, clearly wanting money in return for his help. Anyway, once he had been dispatched, we took our seat (well actually, our bed) just in time, although i was particularly angered at the seizure of my 18 inch sword purchased in hong kong, which having made its way through chinese customs some three days earlier was deemed unfit for its entry to the capital. As befitting the only two English speaking and non-Chinese folk on a 24 hour train ride of approximately 1000 people, banter was somewhat limited, but we managed to amuse ourselves, mainly with the help of video cameras, my spirits lifted somewhat with the arrival of a much needed, but ridiculously large fruit trolley an hour into the journey and it actually turned out to be ok.
When we got to Beijing we soon met up with Pip, our old friend from the University of Nottingham, who is studying Mandarin at University there. Armed with our extremely gifted guide and translator (only joking pip) nothing could surely go wrong, and so it proved for our 6 days in Beijing. I really liked beijing, its such a bizzare city at the moment that kind of sums up china i think. Completely in transition, a really strange mix of high rise apartments, impressive architecture and rapid modernisation all with one eye firmly placed on Olympics 2008 in amongst a massive sprawling city full of beggars, vendors on the street and what is essentially still very much a peasant culture. It was a good change tho after the very 'western' experience of hong kong and singapore. Our first day was spent in and around Tiananman Square and the nearby sights such as the Gates of Heavenly Peace and Chairman Mao's mausoleum. I dont know what it is about this part of the world but they have something of a penchant for pickling their political leaders, particularly those who have f***ed up their country and its people. The more f***ed up the country the stronger the pickling. But unfortunately we didnt get to see the actual corpse as it was, like many things in Beijing while we were there 'under reconstruction.' The view from the Gates of Heavenly Peace down right into the heart of Tiananmen Square is amazing however.
With this under our belts we ventured to the Great Wall and following our night out with pip and friends, we embarked on a quest to become the two most hungover people in history to climb the Great Wall of China. Says Chairman Mao; "He who has not climbed the great wall is not a true man." So HAHAHAHAHAHAHA all of you at home who havent done it yet, read it and weep, according to one of the most failed leaders in political history, you are not true men. and i am. We were lucky in that we got to see a very unrestored part of the wall, about 70km from beijing. Obviously all of the wall is originally thousands of years old but whereas lots of the wall tours and sections are restored, much cleaner and full of touts and hoax vendors and doctors, we got to a very quiet part where there was only our group of 10 and our guide for company. Most of the wall looks as tho its on the verge of collapse as you can tell from my pictures.
After a bit of relaxing following our wall climbing exertions, we spent a day exploring the Forbidden City, so called because it was off limits for hundreds of years. The Forbidden City is a great collection of ancient Chinese buildings overlooking Tiananmen Square. They are individually very impressive and perhaps i was guilty of showing my ignorance in describing them all as a "bit samey." It was impressive and the place reeks of history (amongst other things), with many of the buildings from the Qing and Ming dynasties and housed two dynasties of emperors. Nowadays half of the buildings are 'under reconstruction' for next year tho, a fact that i found highly amusing! Theres nothing quite like looking on the map for the thousands of years old 'Temple of Heavenly Worship' and instead be confronted by a huge mound of scaffold...
Beijing nightlife was definitely more advanced than its Guangzhou equivalent and i already miss both the revolving dance floors of the hip and trendy Club Banana and at the other end of the scale the all you can drink for 30 YEN (two quid) nights featured in many places across the city. Once again many thanks to pip for her local knowledge proved invaluable. Our fianl day in Beijing was spent (after i had bartered myself to death for one last time in the street markets... adidas trousers, two quid, wicked!) at the Summer Palace, a group of palace temples, gardens and Kunming lake, which we spent an extremely long time rowing around, working off all that Tsin Tao. More great names featured include the Temple of the Sea of Wisdom, the Cloud Dispelling Hall and my personal favourite, the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity. Again, they all look t'same...
Our final night in Beijing was a particular highlight, as random nights where you dont plan to go out until you have a beer with some people in the hostel at 11pm often are. It concluded with me having a bongo-off with a chinese woman who i thought i was doing quite well to flirt with but in hindsight was probably a prostitute, but instilled in me a hitherto unseen passion for the bongos. After all that excitement featured a ridiculous 60 hour mission, to be described in greater detail later on, when the story shall be picked up in bordering Laos....
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