Great Walls, Vodka, and Galloping the Mongolian Plains
Lucky for you, I don’t have too much battery left to write this week’s report, otherwise it might run as high and far as the view outside my Mongolian gur tent. So best get on with it then.
Beijing. Capital of the People’s Republic of China. Host of the 2008 Olympic Games. Look up in the sky here on a clear sunny summer day, and see the claustrophobic sweaty gray mist of pollution. The city feels like a crowded tropical airport smoking lounge with no air-conditioning. I got off the night train from Shanghai, made my way through the crowds to the taxis, got in a cab and gave him the Chinese script provided by Vodkatrain to get me to the meeting hotel. The driver nodded, gave the thumbs up, pulled into horrific traffic, and promptly got lost. An hour later, I’m at the hotel (5kms away from the station), and I’m off to the Mongolian Embassy to get my visa. Cue taxi. Cue traffic. Cue the theme of Lost. An hour later, at the embassy, I skip past the guard thankful that at least this mission would be accomplished. Wrong. The embassy had taken a week off to celebrate Mongolia’s 800th anniversary. No staff. No visas. Cue taxi, cue traffic. London, New York, Tokyo - if there’s a city with worse traffic than Beijing, I’ve yet to see it. Feel that sharp tickle in the back of my throat? I’ve smoked too much just by breathing. Lost again. All in, you can see how Beijing’s introduction was less than spectacular.
But I’m here to hitch onto the Vodkatrain, a grand adventure that will take me thousands of miles overland to St Petersburg. That night I met my group of twelve, comprised of English, Australians, and a couple from the U.S. Over the next three week’s I’d be living with them, ten guys, two girls. As with all groups, everyone began to sniff each other out, and my immediate assessment was that it was all very nice, tame and sweet. Which is why the Ulunbaataar Vodka Debacle was so wonderfully unexpected, but more on this later.
Tiananmen Square, the largest city square in the world, the scene of crushed protest, was now the scene of crushed tourists. Western tour buses notwithstanding, China’s booming domestic tourist market was on display. The country has an incredible 1.3 billion people, and it seemed like every one of them was lined up to see the stuffed corpse of Mao. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but with the oppressive heat, humidity and crowds, I couldn’t wait around too long to find out. After walking around Mao’s Mausoleum (Maosoleum?) and the Monument to the People’s Heroes twice, I vetoed standing in the lengthy line to see Mao himself. Partly because queues drive me crazy, and partly because I don’t appreciate men with loudspeakers - the crowd police - screaming at me in a foreign language. A detached female voice would also boom: “No bags, no cameras, please stand in line,” straight out of an Orwellian nightmare. There was just nothing to get excited about, so I made my way towards the large portrait of Mao at the far end of the square to enter the Forbidden City.
The first time I went to Europe, it was undergoing one of those grand refurbishments that left most famous monuments or buildings surrounded by scaffolding. Similarly, Beijing is being spit-polished and restored for the 2008 Olympics, and thus many grand temples and gates are currently covered in construction, the way one might cover a swimsuit model in overalls. Not much I could do about it except use my imagination (it’s fine tuned from all those Sports Illustrated Swimsuit editions!) Seat of emperors, the Palace Museum is called the Forbidden City because the masses were not allowed inside for 500 years. Majestic in scale and vision, it is now open to anyone who can pay the $12 entry fee, which I can confirm, means just about everyone. Once again, overwhelming crowds of people flowed along the paths, robbing the temples, squares and gardens of their famous tranquility. I opted for an automatic walking guide, only to find the voice on the pre-recording sounding like a veteran teacher - half asleep yet stern with authority. And so, as I made my way through the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Palace of Heavenly Purity, and Palace of Earthly Tranquility, I rued the fact that the closest I came to their intended purpose was in listening to their beautiful names. I avoided the Hall of Literary Brilliance, in a stunning lack of self-confidence.
The rickshaw driver outside promised me a “natural air-conditioned” ride back to the hotel, but pedaled out in the opposite direction. He clearly meant it when he said he would “take me for a ride.” I ejected, jumped in a cab, and spent the next hour in choking traffic. Oh Beijing, what is the point? How will you cope for the Olympics? As the group rejoined at the hotel, the consensus was to get out the city as soon as possible. And here, finally, Beijing paid off its dues as the launch pad for a magnificent ramble along the Great Wall of China. All it took was a three-hour drive to get out the city.
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