We arrived in Erlian, sometime past 4am. As soon as we got down the bus, we realized how cold it was. I can recall Prasoon’s teeth chattering and him shivering like anything. I was well-protected with my layers of clothing, gloves, and caps.
The bus stand was absolutely chaotic. There were two buses that arrived together from Beijing and there were many, many jeeps waiting to grab customers. None of the drivers spoke English. In this chaos, we had to make up our mind fast without knowing for sure what’s going on. We just got onto a jeep with two other women. We tried to negotiate for 10 Yuan each to get onto the jeep. The Jeep accommodated 4 passengers with an open body at the back for the luggage. All this while, we were thinking we are now heading towards the China-Mongolia border, where we would have to wait until 9am for immigration. Well, the driver just stopped after 5 minutes. He had brought us to a hotel to stay for those few hours. He reassured us that he will come back at 8am and then drive us to Mongolia Border. The communication channel was not dependable though.
The chaos at the bus station reminded me of Agra, India. A city that thrives on tourism – millions come in to see the Taj Mahal there. The rickshaw drivers have the same enthusiasm and tactics of attracting tourists at the railway station. The victory smile on the face of the drivers who happen to grab the customer before his other friends do is the same! It just surprises me how the country, culture, etc. could be totally different, yet the scale of the city is what defines its character and it could be the same across the world.
So, at the hotel where we got dropped off, they walked us to a room with twin beds on either side of the room, an ensuite bathroom. The room was heated, but the water in the sink and shower was freezing. That meant no shower for us the next day. The bed linen was fancy with ‘ROMANTIC’ written all over it. The setting was far from romantic though. We just cuddled on one bed and set an alarm for 7am. We got ready and were in the lobby by about 8:15am. That’s where we met 4 french people, also heading to Ulan-Bataar. One of them was fluent in English and very friendly. The two girls and one guy were waiters at a restaurant in the mountains in St. Nalo, France. The other guy was a chef there. Their travel had been pretty interesting too. The couple – Gwen & Delphine had been on the road for really long.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Day 2 - Beijing to Erlian
Our this day's agenda is to first make sure we get to UlanBaatar by the 18th of March, since we have some onward bokings. And we do want to visit the Tianmen Square, Forbidden City and Olympic Park. In addition to this, we also wanted to meet Prasoon's ex-colleague and shop for some winter clothing.
The weekly train from Beijing to UlanBaatar runs only on saturdays, as we read. Surprisingly, there is no concrete information on that either. We started the morning with a trip to the Liluiqao bus station, as suggested by out Hostel Concierge. All we know is that the Lonely Planet and other resources mention a bus station and a daily bus that leaves. After much research, we have two names from our Hostel Concierge and the internet - one is the The Liluiqao bus station and the other is Muxiyao bus station. We head to Liluiqao by train and then, a cab. An English-speaking lady confidently confirmed that there is no bus today. She also suggested to check out the Mixiyao bus station. We rushed to the Mixiyao bus station and after much language struggle found out that the earliest bus leaves the following day at about 5pm. With this schedule, we would hardly get a day in UlanBaatar. Feeling very lost, Prasoon decides to call a bus agency from a little shack outside the bus station. We were lucky enough that the shack-employee, who did not understand English, understood our urgent need to get to Erlain, the Chinese border-town with easy access to Mongolia. He took us to a private bus station, towards the backside of this one, through a long route passing through an indoor wholesale linen market. To our relief, we finally found a bus that goes to Erlian. Ofcourse, we were a little doubtful of the whole deal that was done 'Sans-English' - only actions. Our check-in time was 3pm, departure 5pm - pay 400 Yuan NOW! and ofcourse, no tickets issued.
Phew! this seemed like a whole day's work. Now we need to make the best of the few remaining hours in Beijing. We tried asking around if there is a metro station somewhere. Noone understood us and finally we managed a map, but in Chinese. Nevertheless, it helped us to communicate with people. We stepped into a mall across the bus station - I have a picture of this mall. It was a strange mall, with floors dedicated to goods. The first floor was only polo-style T-shirts in all colours and patterns, the next was track suits and then jackets and so on. We bought weather-proof pants for 10 yuan each. The best part was communicating what we are looking for - pants that can resist water. We found an English-speaking girl in one of the stores and she gave us directions to get the BRT for Tianmen Square. The BRT is Beijing's rapid bus service running on dedicated bus lanes. We got off the BRT at Qian Gate - Our first glimpse of the Imperial City. We walked southwards to the Qianmen Street. At that time, we had no idea what the Qianmen Street is. It reminded me of the Grove, Los Angeles with the trolley running along the middle. And also of the Thirs Street Promenade. It was pretty crowded, with almost nonw of the stores open yet. There were a few restaurants functional though. The Qianmen Street recently underwent a year long renovation and will continue to serve as the commercial and amusement center it was centuries ago. Just one or two food stalls were open. We tried the yoghurt and it tasted just like yoghurt. I loved the bright colours of the buildings close to the Qian Gate and as we progressed deeper into the Qianmen Street, the colours migled with the dusty Beijing sky. I'd love to go back when this place is all buzzing with activity. There were a lot of tourists even now though.
We hadn't really done much research about the Forbidden City. We kept trying to figure out which way is the real Forbidden City. We moved towards the Monument to the People's Heroes and the Tian'anmen Square. Here is when we noticed the strange attire of the Chinese babies in winter. Will post a picture of that too. I found it extremely interesting and cute. Looked around for a bit, took some pictures and moved towards the gate of Forbidden City with Mao's image on it. The scale and colours were extremely awe-striking passing through the gates. There were lots of English-speaking guides here. Unfortunately, we just had to draw the line here if we want to do a bit more in Beijing. We decided to head out to the Olympic Park now. Took a cycle rickshaw for 10 Yuan to get us to the next major street, where we could get a cab to get to the Olympic Park. The cabs in Beijing are run by meter, but we still got cheated. The cabbie took a really long route to get to the Olympic Park and charged us 60 Yuan, while it cost us only 27 Yuan on the way back. We saw the CCTV towere on the way with the burnt tower in the as-it-is form. The Olymic Park is set along the axis of the Forbidden City. I was totally awe-struck seeing the aquatic center, looked totally surreal with a Chinese temple in the foreground. The Bird's nest looked great from a distance too. The sky was very dull and gloomy all through our stay in Beijing. I'd love to go and touch the Aquatic Center, but we are running extremely late to check out of our hostel. We rush back in a cab to the hostel, where we had exceeded our extended check-out time. They had locked access to our room. We requested them to open it up, then packed, packed, packed while Prasoon checked out at the front desk. I locked the room behind me with the key still in. The lady at the front desk got extremely mad at us for doing that. At the hostel, they charge a refundable 100 Yuan for the key and she had to go and get it for us. So, more the reason for her to get mad at us. Well, it seemed like we were trying hard to be the worst customers they ever got. We were still in a mad rush to meet Prasoon's friend, Andersen and his wife, Vivien. Caught a cab and located them without much difficulty. They led us to an extremely nice all-vegetarian restaurant in one of the Hutong lanes. The food was extremely nice too - lotus stem with rice, bamboo shoots, green onion pancake, pumpkin soup, sweet n sour pork and a tofu dish. I could not stop drinking the jasmine green tea - fresh, very flavourful and a mild sweetness. There was no sugar in it, but you could add sugar crystals, called 'mishri' in Hindi. It was an introduction to vegetarian food for Andersen and Vivien. I admire their thoughtfullness and hospitality for bringing us here. And ofcourse, they were great company. It must be around 3:30pm or even later after the late lunch and at 5:00pm we have our coach, the only hope to get to Ulanbatar on the 18th of March. We asked Andersen for some directions and he explained to the cab driver to drop us off at the Mixiyao bus station. We were nervously sitting on the edge to get there in time 'coz the driver had expressed to us that we need to be there at 3pm. Now our bus stop was the one behind the Mixiyao bus station through the wholesale market. We thought of expressing this to our driver once we are close to the destination. But then, he insisted to drop us off at the Mixiyao bus station and would not listen to us. After some argument, we got off the cab and ran towards that wholesale market with our backpacks with us. Later, we could relate this to the Amazing Race because as soon as we reached the shortcut through the wholesale market, the shutters were half down and the other shutters were closed. Everyone around understood our urgency and without a word being spoken directed us to the only shutter that was open. Remember, we are still running with out backpacks. We finally made it to the coach. It was still there and so was the guy from whom we purchased the ticket. This was a sleeper coach, so we had to take off our shoes before entering the sleeping area. We had no idea that there was a seat number. We nicely helped ourselves to the best seat we could find and there was some shouting in Mandarin and then, the bus driver explained to us that we have been assigned the seat at the very back - 5 people sleeping in a row, right next to each other. Prasoon took the window, me next to the window and there were 3 people on my other side. They provide the quilt. pillow and a little shelf to keep your shoes and water near your toes. This was far more exciting than thought of. This lady next to me is worth a mention too. I, ofcourse, dont know her one bit, but she was very comfortable with me. I realize her jacket is layered over my jacket, which is beneath my head. She could almost share my quilt, was that close and decide to keep her leg in my space. Could continuously feel her hand and leg. We just assumed noone here speaks English. Prasoon was awake for quiet long in the comfy, heated bus. For a long, long stretch, we were travelling along the Great Wall of China. At about 8:45pm, we stopped somewhere for dinner. This seemed like the most remote part of the world. The bathrooms were primitive, with no partitions, even for women. There were just 5 holes in a row and the toilet did not have any sink to was hands and not even a door. It was like - 'Hello World'! Prasoon had to just use the wall which was the restaurant view. The next challenge was to eat vegetarian food.
Just when we trying to explain in our Indian-Mandarin accent, the word for ‘Vegetarian’, there was a South-American lady who helped us. She was petite and could easily pass off as Chinese, so we didn’t really think of her as a foreigner here. She spoke fluent Mandarin, from whatever I could make out. I still wonder what she was doing there. She didn’t look like a tourist, seemed like someone who travels this route often. She was probably in her 50s, travelling on her own, didn’t seem like she was on an adventure. Well, she didn’t invite much conversation, so we didn’t intrude.
Apparently, they overcharged us for the food, which we realized later. We had some tomato and tofu concoction with rice. It was pretty decent. Most of the passengers ate instant noodles in the restaurant. Drinking water and hot water were available free of charge. Now we were ready for the second leg of this journey from Beijing to Erlian.
The weekly train from Beijing to UlanBaatar runs only on saturdays, as we read. Surprisingly, there is no concrete information on that either. We started the morning with a trip to the Liluiqao bus station, as suggested by out Hostel Concierge. All we know is that the Lonely Planet and other resources mention a bus station and a daily bus that leaves. After much research, we have two names from our Hostel Concierge and the internet - one is the The Liluiqao bus station and the other is Muxiyao bus station. We head to Liluiqao by train and then, a cab. An English-speaking lady confidently confirmed that there is no bus today. She also suggested to check out the Mixiyao bus station. We rushed to the Mixiyao bus station and after much language struggle found out that the earliest bus leaves the following day at about 5pm. With this schedule, we would hardly get a day in UlanBaatar. Feeling very lost, Prasoon decides to call a bus agency from a little shack outside the bus station. We were lucky enough that the shack-employee, who did not understand English, understood our urgent need to get to Erlain, the Chinese border-town with easy access to Mongolia. He took us to a private bus station, towards the backside of this one, through a long route passing through an indoor wholesale linen market. To our relief, we finally found a bus that goes to Erlian. Ofcourse, we were a little doubtful of the whole deal that was done 'Sans-English' - only actions. Our check-in time was 3pm, departure 5pm - pay 400 Yuan NOW! and ofcourse, no tickets issued.
Phew! this seemed like a whole day's work. Now we need to make the best of the few remaining hours in Beijing. We tried asking around if there is a metro station somewhere. Noone understood us and finally we managed a map, but in Chinese. Nevertheless, it helped us to communicate with people. We stepped into a mall across the bus station - I have a picture of this mall. It was a strange mall, with floors dedicated to goods. The first floor was only polo-style T-shirts in all colours and patterns, the next was track suits and then jackets and so on. We bought weather-proof pants for 10 yuan each. The best part was communicating what we are looking for - pants that can resist water. We found an English-speaking girl in one of the stores and she gave us directions to get the BRT for Tianmen Square. The BRT is Beijing's rapid bus service running on dedicated bus lanes. We got off the BRT at Qian Gate - Our first glimpse of the Imperial City. We walked southwards to the Qianmen Street. At that time, we had no idea what the Qianmen Street is. It reminded me of the Grove, Los Angeles with the trolley running along the middle. And also of the Thirs Street Promenade. It was pretty crowded, with almost nonw of the stores open yet. There were a few restaurants functional though. The Qianmen Street recently underwent a year long renovation and will continue to serve as the commercial and amusement center it was centuries ago. Just one or two food stalls were open. We tried the yoghurt and it tasted just like yoghurt. I loved the bright colours of the buildings close to the Qian Gate and as we progressed deeper into the Qianmen Street, the colours migled with the dusty Beijing sky. I'd love to go back when this place is all buzzing with activity. There were a lot of tourists even now though.
We hadn't really done much research about the Forbidden City. We kept trying to figure out which way is the real Forbidden City. We moved towards the Monument to the People's Heroes and the Tian'anmen Square. Here is when we noticed the strange attire of the Chinese babies in winter. Will post a picture of that too. I found it extremely interesting and cute. Looked around for a bit, took some pictures and moved towards the gate of Forbidden City with Mao's image on it. The scale and colours were extremely awe-striking passing through the gates. There were lots of English-speaking guides here. Unfortunately, we just had to draw the line here if we want to do a bit more in Beijing. We decided to head out to the Olympic Park now. Took a cycle rickshaw for 10 Yuan to get us to the next major street, where we could get a cab to get to the Olympic Park. The cabs in Beijing are run by meter, but we still got cheated. The cabbie took a really long route to get to the Olympic Park and charged us 60 Yuan, while it cost us only 27 Yuan on the way back. We saw the CCTV towere on the way with the burnt tower in the as-it-is form. The Olymic Park is set along the axis of the Forbidden City. I was totally awe-struck seeing the aquatic center, looked totally surreal with a Chinese temple in the foreground. The Bird's nest looked great from a distance too. The sky was very dull and gloomy all through our stay in Beijing. I'd love to go and touch the Aquatic Center, but we are running extremely late to check out of our hostel. We rush back in a cab to the hostel, where we had exceeded our extended check-out time. They had locked access to our room. We requested them to open it up, then packed, packed, packed while Prasoon checked out at the front desk. I locked the room behind me with the key still in. The lady at the front desk got extremely mad at us for doing that. At the hostel, they charge a refundable 100 Yuan for the key and she had to go and get it for us. So, more the reason for her to get mad at us. Well, it seemed like we were trying hard to be the worst customers they ever got. We were still in a mad rush to meet Prasoon's friend, Andersen and his wife, Vivien. Caught a cab and located them without much difficulty. They led us to an extremely nice all-vegetarian restaurant in one of the Hutong lanes. The food was extremely nice too - lotus stem with rice, bamboo shoots, green onion pancake, pumpkin soup, sweet n sour pork and a tofu dish. I could not stop drinking the jasmine green tea - fresh, very flavourful and a mild sweetness. There was no sugar in it, but you could add sugar crystals, called 'mishri' in Hindi. It was an introduction to vegetarian food for Andersen and Vivien. I admire their thoughtfullness and hospitality for bringing us here. And ofcourse, they were great company. It must be around 3:30pm or even later after the late lunch and at 5:00pm we have our coach, the only hope to get to Ulanbatar on the 18th of March. We asked Andersen for some directions and he explained to the cab driver to drop us off at the Mixiyao bus station. We were nervously sitting on the edge to get there in time 'coz the driver had expressed to us that we need to be there at 3pm. Now our bus stop was the one behind the Mixiyao bus station through the wholesale market. We thought of expressing this to our driver once we are close to the destination. But then, he insisted to drop us off at the Mixiyao bus station and would not listen to us. After some argument, we got off the cab and ran towards that wholesale market with our backpacks with us. Later, we could relate this to the Amazing Race because as soon as we reached the shortcut through the wholesale market, the shutters were half down and the other shutters were closed. Everyone around understood our urgency and without a word being spoken directed us to the only shutter that was open. Remember, we are still running with out backpacks. We finally made it to the coach. It was still there and so was the guy from whom we purchased the ticket. This was a sleeper coach, so we had to take off our shoes before entering the sleeping area. We had no idea that there was a seat number. We nicely helped ourselves to the best seat we could find and there was some shouting in Mandarin and then, the bus driver explained to us that we have been assigned the seat at the very back - 5 people sleeping in a row, right next to each other. Prasoon took the window, me next to the window and there were 3 people on my other side. They provide the quilt. pillow and a little shelf to keep your shoes and water near your toes. This was far more exciting than thought of. This lady next to me is worth a mention too. I, ofcourse, dont know her one bit, but she was very comfortable with me. I realize her jacket is layered over my jacket, which is beneath my head. She could almost share my quilt, was that close and decide to keep her leg in my space. Could continuously feel her hand and leg. We just assumed noone here speaks English. Prasoon was awake for quiet long in the comfy, heated bus. For a long, long stretch, we were travelling along the Great Wall of China. At about 8:45pm, we stopped somewhere for dinner. This seemed like the most remote part of the world. The bathrooms were primitive, with no partitions, even for women. There were just 5 holes in a row and the toilet did not have any sink to was hands and not even a door. It was like - 'Hello World'! Prasoon had to just use the wall which was the restaurant view. The next challenge was to eat vegetarian food.
Just when we trying to explain in our Indian-Mandarin accent, the word for ‘Vegetarian’, there was a South-American lady who helped us. She was petite and could easily pass off as Chinese, so we didn’t really think of her as a foreigner here. She spoke fluent Mandarin, from whatever I could make out. I still wonder what she was doing there. She didn’t look like a tourist, seemed like someone who travels this route often. She was probably in her 50s, travelling on her own, didn’t seem like she was on an adventure. Well, she didn’t invite much conversation, so we didn’t intrude.
Apparently, they overcharged us for the food, which we realized later. We had some tomato and tofu concoction with rice. It was pretty decent. Most of the passengers ate instant noodles in the restaurant. Drinking water and hot water were available free of charge. Now we were ready for the second leg of this journey from Beijing to Erlian.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Day1 - A Shaky Start
14th March 2009
Singapore to Beijing
After curious wait for past two weeks, the day finally arrived. All packed, we locked our home and stepped out at 6.20am. The early morning walk with our backpacks for the first time on our shoulder seemed quite long. We were both thinking if we will be comfortable at carrying these backpacks around for the next two weeks. Meenakshi seemed more comfortable and determined. I was finding mine to be quite heavy and a little uncomfortable. Soon we would discover at the airport that the difference between our backpacks was not great. Mine weighed 11.6kgs with the day bag out and Meenakshi's was 8.0 kgs. By end of that day, I would have a blister on my left shoulder that would last our entire trip.
The MRT (S$6 for two tickets) from Buona Vista to the airport was a long journey. The train was considerably crowded at these early hours with a lot of school going children. We could see another backpacking couple in the other compartment. Once at the airport we rushed to Terminal 1. At the check-in we realized that I was not carrying the credit card which I had used for the booking. Surprisingly, this was an intentional move on our part to carry less stuff in our pockets and not to duplicate stuff. In this thoughtful smart move, I had left my most important credit card, and the ones I was carrying were all new and not tested. We ended up paying again for our tickets (though we would receive a refund of the previous booking), not the most favourable start to a shoe string trip. I also exchanged S$ 200 into Yuan, which would double the Yuans we would be carrying into Beijing.
We were finally off, on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and would then transfer to Dragon Air for Beijing. We spent a couple of hours at the Chep Lap Kok Airport in Hong Kong, enjoyed some vegetarian Dim Sum (HK$ 30 from a food stall near the burger king) and browsed through a few shops. The Dragon Air flight was more eventful with an American guy and Singaporean girl sitting in seats behind us. They chatted non-stop for the entire journey and were loud enough for us to not be able to ignore their conversations. Their conversations mostly hovered around the American guys life in Beijing, his experience in a foreign city, his passion for staying indoors at home and cooking and his philosophies. I also caught up on a movie 'When the world Stoof Still'. I also spent some time reading through my research and understanding where and how to go in beijing and beyong. This is important to mention here because soon, we would land and I would forget all these important papers in flight. We would also learn that we left the Lonely Planet Trans Siberian at home too.
I was also excited to see how China looked from air. Very industrial, rigid residential blocks and wide roads. Most cities that we flew above had these same characteristics. The more traditional villages or village clusters in larger cities, were mostly had a square building profile with a courtyard in the middle. These would be mostly low rise.
The Beijing International Airport Terminal 3 is impressive. The use of red and the perfect curved forms are the highlights. I did not like the overall form from outside and that is because it is not continuous but is broken into three sections. That also makes the experience of going from one section to the other rather bad in the people movers. From inside, the use of bright orange is a nice shift from the more common white or aluminium/ alucobond finishes that most new airports have (this is not true for the new Madrid airport though). The roof and its curved from is absolutely amazing with the very thoughtful conical form of the columns that seem to disapper onto the roof. The skylights add a layer of texture to the undersurface.
As we walked in the architectural delight of the airport for immigration, we realized that we did not have a pen to fill in our immigration forms. Its not that we were'nt carrying any pens, we had around 6 of them, all types for simple writing to sketching, brush pens etc., but they were all in our checked-in backpacks. And so, we started our first language constrained conversation to borrow a pen. The immigration officers shunned us away and other travelers were too busy. We finally got a pen from our flight crew. When we were to write our place of stay in the form, it hit us, that we had left all our papers in the seat pocket in the plane. And I really mean all, because it had everything about beijing, how to go to Mongolia and where to stay in Irkutsk and Listvyanka. I rushed back to the plane only to find it standing deserted. It is at these moments that I hate the increasing efficiency of service. We had been out of our plane for only 20 minutes, and they had everything cleared up so fast.
Anyways, I was not too worried because I had emailed everything to myself and now that we were at the newest and most modern airport in the world, getting onto the internet would be a breeze. We cleared our immigration, picked up our bagagge and went into the arrival area to switch on our ipod touch and get on the internet. Boom... no connection, no wireless. We could see the brightly lit olympic rings outside which meant very high expectations from this city. But we could not find any internet on the airport or in the starbucks. Few helpful airport attendants directed us to a non-existent business center. We however finally ended up in some kind of an office in one of the back allies of airport shops. A room with two ladies, a computer, a printer, few chairs and a camera for taking passport pictures. They were kind enough to let us use their computer and printer. Phew, we made it and it was a fun little exercise to navigate through chinese versions of windows, google and word. I had used these softwares so many times, that I could do without reading anything on the screen. Finally after 12 hours of having left our home, we were back in action and excitedly venturing into a new territory.
We took the slow and strangely routed Airport Express (50 yuan for 2 tickets) into the city. I was observing the regimented north south housing blocks (which are a common feature in entire China for the strict building codes), wide streets and highways and bare trees and landscape. For the next 15 days, till the time we arrive back in Singapore, we will not be seeing a speck of green in our entire trip. Those who know Singapore (also themed rightly as Garden City) will understand the stark contrast in landscape from what we are used to. English announcements in train and English signaged made our journey into the city simple and easy. We switched trains at Dongzhimen and got onto line 2. Each ride in Beijing Metro costs 2 yuan. We changed again and now into line 5 to reach our destination station, Dengshikou. Surprising for a big city, the rolling stock was less wide than standard heavy rail MRT systems. Beijing residents also are very fond of black and black leather. One sees a swarm of human beings all dressed in black in the train. We were very loud in the that crowd with our red and blue jackets. For the first time, we observed that people found our Indian faces to stare at. The station and interchanges in Beijing are a system of long tunnels, that have that stale and burnt fuel kind of smell, something similat to older metro systems like those in new york city. For me its part of urbanity in a mature city, and in my humble opinion, Beijing qualified as one. In the next 22 hours in the city, I will discover more of the city and it will conform my opinion. However, a disclaimer here is needed because my opinion is largely based on my weekend experience, and it would be interesting to see how the city holds itself up on a normal weekday.
We stepped out of the station with usual tourist's disorientation. On top of that, this was the first time since Singapore that we were outside in non-conditioned environment. A change in termperature from 24deg to 0deg.
Singapore to Beijing
After curious wait for past two weeks, the day finally arrived. All packed, we locked our home and stepped out at 6.20am. The early morning walk with our backpacks for the first time on our shoulder seemed quite long. We were both thinking if we will be comfortable at carrying these backpacks around for the next two weeks. Meenakshi seemed more comfortable and determined. I was finding mine to be quite heavy and a little uncomfortable. Soon we would discover at the airport that the difference between our backpacks was not great. Mine weighed 11.6kgs with the day bag out and Meenakshi's was 8.0 kgs. By end of that day, I would have a blister on my left shoulder that would last our entire trip.
The MRT (S$6 for two tickets) from Buona Vista to the airport was a long journey. The train was considerably crowded at these early hours with a lot of school going children. We could see another backpacking couple in the other compartment. Once at the airport we rushed to Terminal 1. At the check-in we realized that I was not carrying the credit card which I had used for the booking. Surprisingly, this was an intentional move on our part to carry less stuff in our pockets and not to duplicate stuff. In this thoughtful smart move, I had left my most important credit card, and the ones I was carrying were all new and not tested. We ended up paying again for our tickets (though we would receive a refund of the previous booking), not the most favourable start to a shoe string trip. I also exchanged S$ 200 into Yuan, which would double the Yuans we would be carrying into Beijing.
We were finally off, on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and would then transfer to Dragon Air for Beijing. We spent a couple of hours at the Chep Lap Kok Airport in Hong Kong, enjoyed some vegetarian Dim Sum (HK$ 30 from a food stall near the burger king) and browsed through a few shops. The Dragon Air flight was more eventful with an American guy and Singaporean girl sitting in seats behind us. They chatted non-stop for the entire journey and were loud enough for us to not be able to ignore their conversations. Their conversations mostly hovered around the American guys life in Beijing, his experience in a foreign city, his passion for staying indoors at home and cooking and his philosophies. I also caught up on a movie 'When the world Stoof Still'. I also spent some time reading through my research and understanding where and how to go in beijing and beyong. This is important to mention here because soon, we would land and I would forget all these important papers in flight. We would also learn that we left the Lonely Planet Trans Siberian at home too.
I was also excited to see how China looked from air. Very industrial, rigid residential blocks and wide roads. Most cities that we flew above had these same characteristics. The more traditional villages or village clusters in larger cities, were mostly had a square building profile with a courtyard in the middle. These would be mostly low rise.
The Beijing International Airport Terminal 3 is impressive. The use of red and the perfect curved forms are the highlights. I did not like the overall form from outside and that is because it is not continuous but is broken into three sections. That also makes the experience of going from one section to the other rather bad in the people movers. From inside, the use of bright orange is a nice shift from the more common white or aluminium/ alucobond finishes that most new airports have (this is not true for the new Madrid airport though). The roof and its curved from is absolutely amazing with the very thoughtful conical form of the columns that seem to disapper onto the roof. The skylights add a layer of texture to the undersurface.
As we walked in the architectural delight of the airport for immigration, we realized that we did not have a pen to fill in our immigration forms. Its not that we were'nt carrying any pens, we had around 6 of them, all types for simple writing to sketching, brush pens etc., but they were all in our checked-in backpacks. And so, we started our first language constrained conversation to borrow a pen. The immigration officers shunned us away and other travelers were too busy. We finally got a pen from our flight crew. When we were to write our place of stay in the form, it hit us, that we had left all our papers in the seat pocket in the plane. And I really mean all, because it had everything about beijing, how to go to Mongolia and where to stay in Irkutsk and Listvyanka. I rushed back to the plane only to find it standing deserted. It is at these moments that I hate the increasing efficiency of service. We had been out of our plane for only 20 minutes, and they had everything cleared up so fast.
Anyways, I was not too worried because I had emailed everything to myself and now that we were at the newest and most modern airport in the world, getting onto the internet would be a breeze. We cleared our immigration, picked up our bagagge and went into the arrival area to switch on our ipod touch and get on the internet. Boom... no connection, no wireless. We could see the brightly lit olympic rings outside which meant very high expectations from this city. But we could not find any internet on the airport or in the starbucks. Few helpful airport attendants directed us to a non-existent business center. We however finally ended up in some kind of an office in one of the back allies of airport shops. A room with two ladies, a computer, a printer, few chairs and a camera for taking passport pictures. They were kind enough to let us use their computer and printer. Phew, we made it and it was a fun little exercise to navigate through chinese versions of windows, google and word. I had used these softwares so many times, that I could do without reading anything on the screen. Finally after 12 hours of having left our home, we were back in action and excitedly venturing into a new territory.
We took the slow and strangely routed Airport Express (50 yuan for 2 tickets) into the city. I was observing the regimented north south housing blocks (which are a common feature in entire China for the strict building codes), wide streets and highways and bare trees and landscape. For the next 15 days, till the time we arrive back in Singapore, we will not be seeing a speck of green in our entire trip. Those who know Singapore (also themed rightly as Garden City) will understand the stark contrast in landscape from what we are used to. English announcements in train and English signaged made our journey into the city simple and easy. We switched trains at Dongzhimen and got onto line 2. Each ride in Beijing Metro costs 2 yuan. We changed again and now into line 5 to reach our destination station, Dengshikou. Surprising for a big city, the rolling stock was less wide than standard heavy rail MRT systems. Beijing residents also are very fond of black and black leather. One sees a swarm of human beings all dressed in black in the train. We were very loud in the that crowd with our red and blue jackets. For the first time, we observed that people found our Indian faces to stare at. The station and interchanges in Beijing are a system of long tunnels, that have that stale and burnt fuel kind of smell, something similat to older metro systems like those in new york city. For me its part of urbanity in a mature city, and in my humble opinion, Beijing qualified as one. In the next 22 hours in the city, I will discover more of the city and it will conform my opinion. However, a disclaimer here is needed because my opinion is largely based on my weekend experience, and it would be interesting to see how the city holds itself up on a normal weekday.
We stepped out of the station with usual tourist's disorientation. On top of that, this was the first time since Singapore that we were outside in non-conditioned environment. A change in termperature from 24deg to 0deg.
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