12 – Beijing #1

After a frantic start to our journey to Beijing, the rest of the sleeper was relatively stress-free – except for Kirsten pointing out that “spicy chicken” in China is the same flavour as “prawn cocktail” in the UK. Was not ready for that one.

The hostel in Beijing was the same that I’d stayed in with the other Volunteers before leaving China in 2016. Like the Shanghai one, it had changed, although mostly in the form of gender-segregated dorms, which was a pain because it split us up. The one time I tried calling for Evie & Kirsten (by agreement), I got the kind of reception that makes perfect sense in hindsight, and after that we agreed that they would come by my dorm room when we needed to leave.

We spent our first day at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Evie had a field day with the dodgy paint-job there, and it was fascinating going around with her. The most captivating part was probably the experience of walking past the portrait of Mao on the way in, or trying to get a good photo of the flying insects swarming around the compound. We scooted off for lunch at a fancy buffet Evie found (after a quick survey I found out their favourite dish of the trip was the one we had on the first day of the trip, so we went looking for bao buns), while a businesswoman literally scooted alongside our bus in the bike lane on a no-handles Segway, typing furiously on her laptop the whole time. Queen.

The buffet was glorious but we were shamed by the staff double checking our quadruple order of sweet pork buns (yes, we will eat the entire thing), and although the price seemed extortionate we realised after that it was actually extremely reasonable for the fanciness (individual heated cloth towels in the bathrooms?!) and price.

That evening, Kirsten found an excellent rate for the Beijing Opera, so we headed out that night to the theatre. Without wishing to be rude, it did not shape up compared to the one in Sichuan, and I finally understood the comments from one Project Trust donor who had described their dismay at having to hear the performances every night for several months from their accommodation, during a trip to China many years ago. Having been, I finally understand what they meant.

Day two was dedicated to a Great Wall trip – powered by the guidance of a Lonely Planet guide only a few years out of date. We opted to walk at Gubeikou, a section of ‘wild wall’ unspoilt by the Bureau of Tourism’s tendency to slap a red-lettered engraving and plastic mascot on the side of a nearby hill. The trip required a bus from the outskirts of Beijing city to Miyun (the location of the Project Trust induction Summer camp!), and then an even less regular bus out to the middle of nowhere (ie. Gubeikou). The dusty road of our bus stop did not do justice to the banquet restaurant where we had lunch, followed by a leisurely stroll along country roads for a few miles until we reached what will clearly be a tourist stop within a few years (close enough to charge an entrance fee, unsupervised enough not to have anyone else there).

After a couple of wrong turns we found the trail up to the Wall, and… oh my. This is one of the best places I have ever visited, full stop. Unrestored wall sloped off into the distance over low hills, bearing otherwise-unbroken greenery. We wandered along and met no-one although we spotted a few hikers in the distance. After revelling in the scenery, we reluctantly made our way back to the track, and back to the dusty main road.

Here we hit a slight, uh, hitch. After about half an hour waiting for our bus, it became increasingly difficult to fend of a particularly insistent taxi driver who was telling me the bus had been cancelled because the road ahead was closed (the road we’d travelled in on). This was an easily-disproven lie: even with my terrible Mandarin I was able to ask the other passengers that they were, indeed, waiting for the same bus as us. Eventually, he offered us such a reasonable rate (50¥ for all 3) which was actually cheaper than the bus, that I convinced Kirsten and Evie that we were on to a good thing.

A quick cutaway to explain that private cars in China are a questionably-legal but highly-reliable way to travel. In some places, they are definitely the best way to get from A to B, and in a pinch they’d allowed us during the Project Trust year to make weekend plans when the trains and/or buses were fully-booked. All of which is to say – at this point, no alarm bells were necessarily ringing.

What I’d forgotten, as we climbed into the back of this man’s 8-seater behind two other passengers, was that saving face is especially important in China: if the driver lured us in with the premise that the road was closed, he was damn-sure going to act as though the road was closed. Hence, about 20 minutes into the drive, he turned off the road onto a literal dirt track. I think this was the only point during our travels at which I genuinely thought I’d fucked up, but was trying (apparently unsuccessfully) to act for Kirsten and Evie as though everything was fine. As I watched my signal drop to zero, I really thought we were done for.

Eventually we got back to something resembling a road – the ‘closed road’ he made sure to point out to me. Back in service range, I was able to track our route to Mi Yun. At the end, I found out my Mandarin was not as good as I’d thought, and the taxi driver nearly punched me as we, uh, ‘negotiated’ the rate we had agreed at the start. But, back in the satellite towns near Beijing, the final bus was thankfully much simpler to take into what now felt like the centre of the city, having been briefly so far out in the Styx.