Peking and the Great Wall

Tuesday 6 July 1999 – Thursday 8 July 1999                   

It was with huge relief that we finally arrived in Beijing, even if we were - as Jean, Pippa's mum, would so kindly and frequently remind us - no less than five days behind schedule.  We had been beginning to wonder if we would ever make it, especially while enduring a long delay in Ulaan Baatar airport.  But we did, complete with all three pieces of luggage, and by late afternoon were checking into the China World hotel only to find Jean basking in five star luxury, complete with cable TV and a perfectly air-conditioned room to combat the 36°C heat.  After all our trials and tribulations dealing with Chinese border officials, our sympathies ended there, but it was great to finally meet up with her and find her in one piece.

Our original three and a half week schedule had shrunk considerably given our delay, so we knew we would have to select key places we wanted to visit in order to fit as much as we could into the time we had remaining:  that meant only one day of sightseeing in Beijing.

Limited though our time in Beijing was, we managed to see everything we really wanted to.  Priority number one was a corpse.  Having missed out on visiting Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow, Pippa was determined to see her first dead body in the form of Mao Zedong, and we joined the queue of well-wishers in Tiananmen Square, young and old from seemingly all walks of life.  Having read a bit of history on China and being under no illusions as to how destructive Mao’s policies had been, it was amazing to see how so many people came to pay their respects to someone they apparently regarded as their savior.  In contrast to Russia, the Chinese propaganda machine was still going strong.  As we neared the entrance of the mausoleum, people hurried over to a nearby kiosk to buy bunches of fake, plastic flowers to lay at a memorial in the front hall positioned beneath a humungous painting of the Great Leader himself.  Once the trough was full, these flowers were recycled and taken back to the kiosk to resell to the next people in line.  Not a bad business!

Chairman Mao’s picture adorned almost anything and everything in China, not least Tiananmen Gate at the entrance to the Forbidden City, where hundreds of people vie for space to have their picture taken with him smiling benevolently over their shoulder.  Pippa took her place among the throngs and now treasures her very own “Me and Mao” souvenir of Beijing.  The architecture of the Forbidden City was as splendid and majestic as we had envisioned, although there was something quite sad about the thousands of tourists filing through from one end to the other, rarely bothering even to take in the full 360° panorama around them.

Beijing was apparently laid out on design principles precisely opposite to those of Chinese gardens:  the latter are tiny yet seem spacious, while the former is sprawling yet smelly and congested.  Even in the parks a cloud of pollution hangs in the air, giving them an oppressive and claustrophobic feel.  A huge amount of reconstruction was underway, both in the form of office blocks and new roads, which the city desperately needed but only adds to the queues of traffic and never-ending noise.

Our visit to the Great Wall was a refreshing change.  Eric had insisted we leave by 05.00am to arrive before the crowds and to scale the wall before the heat was at its worst.  This, despite protest from some, was actually a great idea.  We hired a car to drive us to a part of the wall several hours away from Beijing in Simatai, which we hoped would also be the least overridden with tourists.  As we arrived, the sun was beginning to climb up over the hills, bathing the wall in watery light, and as the mist rose it gave the the wall a majestic aura.  

One of Pippa’s life-long ambitions had been to climb the Great Wall of China and climb it she did, leaving her mother at the  second or third turret along and clambering on past number fourteen until the steep ruins became impassable.   The views were magnificent, the Great Wall seeming to ride the crest of a never-ending wave of stone that vanished on the shores of distant lands.  It was truly a magical experience.    

One other thing we managed to cram into our two-day stay was a visit to the Beijing opera, a fun evening out  surrounded once again by the ever-present hoard of Japanese tourists.  The music and costumes were certainly authentic, and thanks to a few sporadic translations appearing on a digital screen, we could almost follow what was happening.