Again, we were blessed with good traveling luck.  Our misfortunes were limited to minor sickness, lost luggage and the occasional rip-off.  Asia was generally inexpensive – though it helped to shop for deals.

China is a ‘trophy’ destination for global tourists. But despite being the 3rd  most popular destination (after USA and France) it’s not an easy place to get around for the independent traveling family.  It’s worth the challenge though, particularly the more remote regions.  We loved the Yangshuo and Dunhuang areas especially.  And the Great Wall is probably our favorite walk.

Cambodia is a gem of a country to visit.  It’s got rich history; some very sad, some magnificent.  And there is a burgeoning mid-market for hotels and restaurants that make for a very comfortable but inexpensive tour.

Thailand was the original exotic destination in South East Asia, and it’s showing it’s wear as a travel destination.  But it’s also reinventing itself as a real sustainable nature destination, and we had one of the greatest experiences with mother nature in our lives at the Patera Elephant farm.

Get your family to Asia!  Our kids are still talking about it.

• Day 1-3 Arriving in the future: Getting to Asia is the hardest part.  Tips on helping kids with jetlag and Lily like Japan’s high-tech toilets.

• Day 4 Krazy Karsts and Kwiksand We get trapped in quicksand during our adventure hike and raft on the Li river

• Day 5 An International Water Fight on the Dragon River: Yangshuo area has amazing karsts and rivers to explore.  Ours turns into a waterfight.

• Day 6 Don’t come to China to be alone: Spelunking in a water cave and we get lost deep in the hills of the Longsheng rice terraces.

• Day 7 The Most Beautiful Place on Earth: High up in the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces we see the most amazing views.

• Day 8 Heavenly Layers of Harmonious Paradise like Oreo Cookie McFlurry: The industrial Chinese city of Xian has one of the best preserved old city markets and a mosque.

• Day 9 Warriors, Worries and Water Fountains: A top-five archeological find:  the terracotta warriors of Xian.  Emma gets sick.

• Day 10 A Sick Kid and a Vegas Show in Xian: We worry about Emma’s high fever and stay indoors while she recovers.  A touristy ‘Tang Dynasty’ show dissapoints.

• Day 11 Onward to the Gobi Desert on the Old Silk Road: Our farthest destination in China is the Gansu province, ancient silk road city of Dunhuang.

• Day 12 A Giant Tourist Sandbox and the Buddhist Louvre: We visit the world’s greatest repository of Buddhist art in Dunhuang, China.

• Day 13 Trekking the Gobi Desert on Buses, Horses, Hang Gliders, Camels and Vans: A transportation cornucopia pulls the family from site-to-site in the historic silk road of the Gobi Desert

• Day 14 Beijing from a WWI Motorcycle Sidecar: Modern Beijing is viewed from a the side-car of a world war one motorcycle.  Amazing!

• Day 15-18 A working week in Beijing: We pause for a few days to work but find a crazy Daoist temple and the Olympic stadium.

• Day 19 A great Day on the Great Wall: One of the best hiking adventures we’ve ever had.  Don’t go to the touristy parts of the wall!

• Day 20-21 A Little Kick in the Ass on the Way Out: Beijing in summer is tough, and China is a challenge for the independent traveling family.

• Day 22-25 Pakistan and Phuket: We split up for a week as I go to Pakistan for work, and the kids suffer on the beaches of Phuket.

• Day 26 It’s a Holiday in Cambodia: Phnom Penh has great boutique hotels, museums and restaurants.  What a great city for family adventure travel.

• Day 27 Explaining Genocide to Our Kids -S-21 and the killing fields: Our enthusiasm is tempered by visits to the monuments to te sad genocidal history of Cambodia

• Day 28 The Holy Grail of Adventure Travel is Cheap Laundry Service Seam Reap is another of the trophy destination for world travelers.  We begin our tours by flying the ruins of Angkor Wat from a motorized hang glider.

• Day 29 Exploring the Ruins of the Greatest Ancient City: The day starts early watching a sunrise and then searching through the Indiana Jones ruins.

• Day 30 Phallic Symbols Intimidate Me on Our Last Day of Siem Reap:  Our final days in Seam Reap include the main temple of Banyan, Angkor Wat and a great waterfall.

• Day 31-32 Snuff Films in Chiang Mai and How to Pick a Husband: Chiang Mai is an old-school exotic travel destination.  We find a a lot of fun zip-lining and playing with baby tigers.

• Day 33 I Kissed Mother Nature and She is Hairy: The new-school of exotic travel in Chiang Mai is the truly sustainable tourism.  We spend the day taking care of rehabilitated elephants.

• Day 32-35 The Final Days end with a Cheesy Tour of Bangkok: Bangkok is a many layered city.  We find the cheesy layer in an old river tour.  Then the month is over and we head home.

Related posts:

1. Asia Itinerary 2011 – China, Thailand, Cambodia (and Pakistan!)
2. Planning the Family Travel Adventure to Asia
3. Arriving in the future: Asia -China – Day 1-3

But this is even bad for summer, which is often foggy. We can’t see buildings on the next block. It’s oppressive and stifling.

Unfortunately this is also the morning we set aside to do the major Beijing sights: Temple of Heaven, Tienanmen square and the Forbidden City. Trish wilts seconds after we get out of the cab at the Temple of Heaven. Beijing isn’t making it easy on our last day.

Sunday night on Nanluogu Xiang

After our Great Wall trip on Saturday we were completely wrecked. And Trish and I both needed a mental break so the family stayed inside. I hate to lose a day in a country as great as China, but we were just plain tired. Lily and I napped together in what may be one of our last cuddly daddy-daughter naps. She begins Third grade in a few months.

In the evening we went to the walking district of Nanluogu Xiang, a food and shopping district with hip and urban stores that sell clothes, collectable toys and some nice handmade stuff.

There was a surprisingly repetitive selection to the stores. Two stores featured the same collection of wind-up reproduction antique robots. I have a real antique robot in my house, a gift from one of my Dad’s friends. I love them and was tempted to buy but I have no way to fit them in my pack.

I had no idea there was so much Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies plushie and windup paraphernalia. It was everywhere. There were knock-off Dr. Martin’s called Dr Markens that I wanted to buy Emma (white patent leather.) Two stores had them, and oddly when I asked for her size in the second store, I realize it was the same sales clerk as the first one. Weird.

Trish found a beautiful A-line linen shirt with some hand painted chinese water-color style flowers and koi. One side has some linen detail ruffles. It’s very tasteful, not stylized and cliche like so much of the clothing here. (See weird t-shirts of Obama as Mao, and I

One of the local crazes are hair-pin bunny ears, possibly because it’s the year of the rabbit. Or maybe because they are so damn cute. Lily bought a pair for a few bucks and was very happy with her purchase. Chinese teen girls could be seen with them too.

Our last Chinese meal

We found a Chinese restaurant full of Chinese people (always a good sign) and picked from the picture menu. I ordered shrimp and peanuts, which came in a slightly spicy and sour dark soy sauce – typical of northern Beijing cuisine. We ordered some dumplings that were juicy and the Yangzhuo-style fried rice (ham, peas, egg and shrimp) for lily was not bad.

The cucumbers in a raw garlic dressing was refreshing. But the surprise was some kind of pork mystery meat, probably a gland of some kind, in a sauce that was tasty. But I wasn’t hungry enough to do more than sample the chewy bites. Trish won’t eat organs. (insert tasteless joke…)

It would have been a good meal, if it wasn’t for the smoking. Lily asked why there was a no smoking sign that everyone ignored. It fostered a short discussion on ‘Rule of Law’ which is something the USA takes for granted. These kind of discussions, done over the unforgettable sensory experience of being in a smokey Chinese restaurant in Beijing, are the ones I love.

The Temple of Heaven

I was worried that our clothes would still smell of smoke this morning. They don’t. But it’s almost as foul outside the Temple of Heaven as it was last night in the restaurant on Nanluogu Xiage.

In less foul weather, The Temple of Heaven is a beautiful park with some very accessable Ming dynasty buildings used by the Emporers for sacrifice, worship and significant cultural events. It was one of the few places they would go outside the Forbidden City.

Trish and the girls gather enough energy to join one of the dancing grandma groups in the park.

China isn’t generally a charming place, but the public groups of dancers and martial arts practitioners is very endearing.

The line dance is simple enough and my girls, all of whom are dancers, easily join the show. But how those ladies do this for longer than 10 minutes in the heat is beyond me. Several of them are wearing long pants too. Trish and the girls retreat, panting in the heat.

One word to describe the Temple of Heaven? Hellish. It’s just too ghastly outside and there are a lot of people.

But we take a few photos and the kids like the big pagoda in the center. Trish takes lots of photos of the art detail on the buildings, which is truly amazing.

The plan was to stop by here briefly anyway, though you could do a few hours here if you wanted to see every building.

The largest public square in the world

For once it’s not hard to get a cab, and I say (Chi’-en-men) which is roughly how the Chinese say Tieneman square. This cab is not air conditioned however, and Trish groans in the back seat. She mumbles that she wants to hang her head out the window like a dog.

The second time she had Chemotherapy triggered menopause in a ferocious way and with it, fierce and frequent hot flashes. The incredibly uncomfortable enough, but she also hates being sweaty. A day like today makes her really cranky and grumpy.

At one point I suggest, with annoyance, that she go back to the hotel and relax. It’s hard to have someone who looks so miserable along. She says she doesn’t feel well, but really wants to see the Forbidden City. I know she’s trying her hardest.  We continue our trudge across the half mile concourse of Tienanmen square.

On the way, Emma Lily and I have another great discussion about the 1989 protests, Soviet architecture, Mao Zedong, and the great cultural revolution. I’m impressed later when Emma remembers the great cultural revolution as an answer to one of my questions.

Lily finally gets the socialism and capitalism thing, and talks to me at length about how shopkeepers need to set their own prices. I don’t know where she found the mental energy in this heat to grasp something I didn’t undersand until High school. She’s a very bright kid.

Tienanmen square would be long by ltself. It’s the largest in the world. But they also have tightly controlled entrances and exits, which are not the shortest distance to where you are going and usually involve long underground passegways with throngs of people that let you off on some even farther corner of the square.

Eventually we make it to the Mao Zedong portrait after at least 3 security checkpoints, and into tienman park. Our next stop is the Forbidden city, the motherload of China tourist destinations. We picked Monday over the weekend because it would be a little less busy, but the crowds are still incredibly dense. Trish is barely hanging on, so I deposit her an the girls in a souvenier shop that has an AC.

I need money in China

Before we can get into the Forbidden City, our final activity in China, I need cash for the $40 tickets.  In anticipation of departure from China, I let my cash dwindle down a little too far.

‘No ATM here” the man says. But I assume he just doesn’t speak English well enough to tell me where one actually is. This is the largest tourist attraction in China. There has to be an ATM.

I circle around the park and walk by the entrance to the Forbidden city, which in addition to requiring money I don’t have, has lines at least 30 minutes long just to get a ticket.

This isn’t looking good. My watch says it’s 12:30 and we have to get back to the hotel, get lunch, finish packing and check out by 3pm. Our flights from China leave around 6pm.  The Forbidden City is supposed to be at least 4 hours long.  (Some people take a full day.) If we don’t get in there by 1pm we won’t even have an hour.

“Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck” I’m yelling in my head. How did I not get more money before we left? And why the hell are there no ATMs (or credit card machines) at the worlds largest tourist activity? It will be humiliating If spend three weeks in China and miss the Forbidden City because I didn’t bring cash.

Trish and I try to talk it out in the SOuvenier shop she and the girls are in.  But there isn’t much to say. Trish is feeling sick, I’m stupid and China is beating us.

The crowds are swarming.  I can’t even walk in a straight line.  I’ll make one last try in the other direction. If I can’t get money in the next 25 minutes, we will have to skip the Forbidden City.

Back out the park, under Mao Zedong, through the underpass, along Tieneman square and into a metro station I run.  ATMs are hit or miss in China. There are a lot of them, but many don’t work or don’t take my card. The first three ATMs I get to are broken. It’s 12:55, and in 5 minutes I’ll turn around and hang my head in defeat.

It’s always in the last place you look. Around the corner of the underground walkways is the entrance to the Beijing opera and philharmonic. On a hunch that there will be an ATM near the ticket office, I race up the stairs, which are at least, air conditioned.  Sure enough a brand new ATM machine sits in the spanking new beautiful foyer.

Back I go, down the metro, along Tienanmen square, under Mao Zedong and through the park to the girls who are practically falling asleep on the dirty floor of the sounvenier shop. Trish says I just missed a fistfight between some tourists and the shop owner. The heat makes everyone aggro.

Into the Forbidden City

Trish seems to be feeling better. And I have money. Even better, the long lines for tickets have dwindled to a few people. They still try to cut me, but I’ve spent to much time in the Soviet Union to get edged out by a grandma’s elbow.  I keep my place in line and purchase tickets.

The pavement of the ticketing area, outside the enourmous gates is covered in trash (above left). This place is nuts!. But we are about to enter one of the most fabulous royal residences of a great empire.

It’s so amazing that it was twice spared destruction by it’s enemies. The British and French, camped out in victory on it’s doorstep in Tienanmen square considered burning it but decided to burn the old summer palace instead. And Mao himself presumably gave the order to leave it even though many other imperial and religious buildings in Beijing and other cities were flattened.

The heat is even worse at 1pm, and my clothes are soaked through with sweat.  The crowds inside are difficult but we can fight our way to see inside the major buildings without too much difficulty.  In a crowd, Lily is grabbed away from me by a Grandma for a picture with her family and I yell ‘NO’.  Not only was I startled, but I’m out of patience with China today.  The woman grabs her again and I have to wave her off aggressively.   Not now.

Dragon Thrones

We talk about the dragon throne, on which the Emperor’s minions would tremble because nothing he demanded from the throne could be questioned or refused.  Trish teases Lily that is she were Emperor, Trish would make her love Justin Beiber.  The thrones are magnificent, although a little hard to see until you fight your way up front for a spot.

The city is laid out on a north south axis, with the most important buildings on that line.  There are 3 or 4 throne rooms, each with different levels of importance.  Since we are getting out of here quickly, the buildings to the side are ignored.  We’ll see them when we come back in the less busy spring time another year.

Moon Garden

We think we’re almost done and then we spill into a beautiful courtyard with ponds, ancient trees and sculpture.  It’s getting late but this can’t be missed.

If only there weren’t so many people and so hot.  It’s just to difficult to thoroughly enjoy this way.  But we knew July would be bad for crowds and weather.  Go in spring or fall if you can!

And with an unceremonious brisk walk out the exit, we are done with China.  Almost three weeks of touring around one of the greatest ancient and modern civilizations has been, like all good adventure travel, exhausting and rewarding.

Outside I consult my map and figure that it’s a 20 minute walk.  It’s going to be hell finding a cab right outside the Forbidden City.  People are pouring out by the dozen.

So we walk.  But I’m wrong. Those Beijing blocks are incredibly long.

A little scam

After 10 min, a few guys on Bicycle tuk-tuks stop near us on the corner of one of the moats for the forbidden city.  We aren’t even close to our hotel and everyone is panting.  He sais ‘Tieneneman square?  Three, Three”  ”Sure” I say.  But in the back of my head, three yuen sounds like too little.  I bet that this is some kind of scam.

We get in anyway.  Even if they overcharge me or something, I’ll just argue with them.  We need the ride badly.   The driver, no a pretty face, looks back at me as we are rolling through the hutong and says “Three Money! Three Money  Three Money”  I’m not scared, but he is a little creepy.  We’re not on any main street, but deep in the back alleys.  At least I can tell we are mostly in the right direction.

And then he stops in the middle of an alley.  ’Out!’ he shouts.  If it weren’t broad daylight, I’d be scared now.  ”One minute walk’ and points toward the main street that I can see 100 yards ahead.  I know we are not at our hotel.  This is the scam.  he only goes a short way, drops off the dumb tourists in a back alley and wants three dollars not 3 yuen.

I bark back pretty hard and we get eye to eye.  I give each driver 10 yuen and walk off.  They can come after me if they want, but they won’t.  It’s still another 20 minute walk to the hotel.

Goodbye China

This is the place we break up for a week.  I head to Pakistan for work and the girls go to Thailand.

China gives me one more little nudge on the way out.  My Air China flight is delayed indefinitely with no announcement to the passengers.  (A few hours later I take off.)

It’s a little hard to be in love with this place.  China fights you back sometimes, even in spite of itself.  But it does have amazing sights and history.  You can’t say you’ve traveled the globe without visiting China.

Related posts:

1. Beijing from a WWI motorcycle sidecar – Asia – China – Day 14
2. A working week in Beijing: Asia – China Days 15-18
3. Arriving in the future: Asia -China – Day 1-3

Blue skies overhead and a view to the mountains is better than I could have asked for on our big day to the Great Wall. The view out our hotel window is beautiful.

Mr. Zhang, our driver for the day, picks us up at 7am and begins the 2+ hour drive to our destination, the tiny village (even by Chinese standards) of Xizhazi (Shi-zah-zde).

He’s a cheery guy and speaks much better English than I expected for someone in a green and yellow Beijing Taxi. He’s a neighbor of our friends in Beijing, and agreed to do the day for a discounted price.

Which section of the wall?

The Great wall is broken into named sections some of which are contiguous. There are many in the Beijing greater area, which is smaller than New Jersey with twice the population.

The most popular section is Badaling, which has been completely restored and is very close to Beijing. Due to proximity it has become a tourist trap for Chinese and International travelers alike. There are carnivals and hawkers every step of the way there.

Chinese must see the great wall in Beijing in their lifetime. It’s like the Statue of Liberty: a national symbol. (Nevermind the irony of a country trying to build ties with the rest of the globe that has a defensive wall as it’s symbol.) Mao reportedly said ‘He who has not stood on the Great Wall is not a man.’

Other sections, like the one we are going to today (at least the first half.) are unrestored. Unrestored sections are more authentic, and arguably beautiful, but they are also more dangerous. The Jiankou section of our hike was reported to be the most dangerous activity in Beijing  by a rescue team in China as reported by China Daily, the government English language newspaper.

Do your homework, or take a guide.

When I told our friends, over Yunnan food lunch yesterday, that we were going to the Jiankou section, they were a little surprised and reminded me it was dangerous, especially without a guide.

You can hire guides from Beijing with cars but they are very, very expensive.  I was quoted a thousand dollars for the family, from one of the places. You can also get guides from Zhao’s hostel in Xizhazi for much less but you have to get your own transport and they often don’t speak English.

But I have done my homework, thanks to Greatwallforum.com and especially the administrator of the site, Bryan.  I’m (mostly) confident we can do this without a guide.

While it’s true that a particular section of Jiankou is very dangerous (pictured left),  but if you take the right trails, you can skip it and have a fantastic, challenging, but safe hike all the way to a fully restored section of the wall (Mutiyanu) that even has a cable car to take you down.

The hardest part, apparently is finding the starting point in Xizhazi. Our driver is very lost and it’s been at least three hours since we left Beijing. Fortunately the girls are entertaining themselves pretty well, and it’s nice to be out of the city with clear blue sky.

We wind around North Beijing district asking everyone we see, all of whom give him directions, none of whom actually know where it is.

I finally give him the number of a hotel that is supposed to be in this little town and they direct him to the right place. (Mr. Zhang was very patient and friendly, and is now one of the few drivers in Beijing that knows how to get to Xizhizi. So if you need him,  email and tell him hi from the Creekmores!  zhangguanxu1959@yahoo.cn  We have his mobile number too.)

Another 90 minutes later we pull onto the road to Xizhixi. Greatwallforum.com said to look for a series of road signs, and turn-off through the cornfield. I’m not kidding. The entrance to this section of the wall is still somewhat secret.

He drives us as far as he can go up the road.  There is no trail yet, only cornfields and a chicken farm.  Beyond the fields is the intimidating mountain of Chinese forest.

Finding the trail to the top

I knock on the door of the farmhouse and use my 50 word mandarin vocabulary –  ’Zhengbeilou zai nali?’ Some chatter escapes the dark farmhouse – probably laughing at my pronunciation.  A youngish woman steps out and points to a little trail that runs into the trees. ‘Xie xie’ I say, and off we go!

On the trail, we have a funny episode where the girls, including Trish, do outdoor peeing. Emma bends far backwards and pees forward like a boy! LOL I remember our night in the Sahara desert when the girls all had to pee in the dark, laughing hysterically. Like that night, today will be a great moment in travel.

Somewhat buried in the forums is the most important piece of information we needed:  a picture of the critical fork in the road (right).  Fortunately I recognized it  (left.)  Don’t miss this turn-off, because it’s counter intuitive to go down.

Some Chinese trekkers walk by coming from the wrong direction and ask me in broken English which way is Zhengbeilou (The name of the tower that starts this hike). I point down the right side of the fork and they laugh. The American is guiding the Chinese to the Great Wall.

It’s a pretty walk, but upill and in parts very steep. It’s not sunny under the dense canopy of pines and maples, but it’s humid we are already through one liter of water. I’m carrying three more on my back and hope we have enough.

As the switchbacks get more steep, our breaks come more frequently. The 45 minute climb to the wall is taking us a little over an hour, but supposedly this is the hardest part of the 5 hour trek.

It’s rough on Trish, especially in the humidity. Her body does admirably well, but she can’t go at the same pace.

The Creekmore Army attacks the wall

Emma is up front and yells ‘I can see the top!’   Sure enough, we catch up with emma and get our first view of The Eagle Flies Upward part of Jiankou. We are not going there because it is highly risky, but it is beautiful.

Up a little farther we can see the wall itself. As we are coming from the north side, this is what it would have looked like for the Mongols, and indeed it would be difficult to attack with confidence. We are looking at a sentry tower with little slots for arrows and spears (and guns eventually.)

Ghengis Kahn spoke derisively of the Great Wall, saying ‘A wall is only as good as the people that guard it.’ The Creekmore Army attacks the wall the same way Ghengis often did – by paying off the guards. For 10 Yuen, a man let’s us up the ladder so we don’t have to climb around the dangerous part.

The most photographed place on the Great Wall is Eagle Flies Upward, pictured behind Trish. It’s a nearly vertical ascent and is named that way because (DUH) the Eagle has to fly upward to get there.

Several photographers sit and stand on the guard station overlooking Eagle Flies Upward, waiting perhaps for later in the day when evening sun begins to cast shadows. Right now it’s 1pm and the sun is directly overhead.

It’s also lunch time! And we pull out our fantastic lunch of Pringles, Goldfish, peanut butter and water. After our tiring ride home from the Taoist temple, we were fortunate to find an international grocery in an expensive mall with companies like Tiffany, Cartier, Givenchy and Prada. Tucked away behind a thousand types of expensive jams and jellies were a half dozen jars of Skippy peanut butter.

I’ve never seen Emma so excited! She was jumping for joy at finding peanut butter. China has, for her, been a rough trip for eating. Honestly, it’s not been great for us either. Although a few spots have been interesting, I can’t honestly say that I love the food.

We pick the inside of the guard tower to eat, where it’s cool. There is quite a bit of trash, sadly, and we pick up as many pieces as we can stuff into the backpack. Lily looks out a window. ‘Daddy I’m a Mongol and I’m looking south at China!’  (Above in B&W)

We’ve talked a bunch about the Great Wall, which didn’t really do a great job of keeping out the northern barbarians. It probably stopped some of the petty attacks.

The unrestored part of the wall

The wall here is completely unrestored, which means we are walking on the original Ming dynasty bricks, which was built solidly of slave labor. There are bones of the dead slaves entombed in it’s walls. Plants, grasses and large bushes grow here leaving only small paths through which to walk. The sun beats down.

Many of the walls edges have collapesd inward, and in a few places you have to walk right along a 30 foot edge. You wouldn’t die from the fall, but it’s a long way to get help from here.

In places the wall is covered in vegetation.  Little wild lillies grow with orange flowers.  A bush grows everywhere with little pale lavender blooms.

And when you look up, your eye goes for hundreds of miles in almost every direction, almost to the horizon before is gets obscured by haze. We can see the outskirts of Beijing and a few other towns to the south. East and west is the mountain range we walk on. North is another range that has beautiful red clifsides.

And if you were just here hiking you’d be happy to see this view once on your hike through the forest. But you are also on the great wall, which is one of the great efforts in engineering history, and you are above the treeline and can see in every direction for the whole hike.  And the wall itself is a beautiful dolomite snake coiled on the the mountain top.

It’s breathtaking. I shoot photographs every few feet in a futile attempt to capture some of the glory on camera. You get a small sense of it here (above) from my spliced pictures. Please come here. You won’t regret it.

We are fortunate that it’s a bright sunny day although an early morning start would have given us some better light. I’ve also seen pictures from Autumn, as the Maples change color, that are even more spectacular.  A light winter snow makes this place look ghostly.

I wouldn’t want to trek up here in the snow though. This isn’t high risk, but it is tricky. Our hike up Wayna Picchu was probably harder and fatally dangerous if you made a stupid mistake. On the other hand this is a lot longer of a hike and farther from help.

The Oxbow

The highest part of the Great Wall anywhere in China  on our trek today is at the oxbow of Jiankou, just up ahead (pictured above).  the mountain curves in such a way that the wall has to do a hairpin turn.  And it’s incredibly steep climbing up.  But we are rewarded with the best views, all the way back to our starting place at Zhengbeilou and Eagle flies upward.  Back down is easier on the legs, harder on the knees, scarier to the eyes.

Lily says this is the ‘best adventure day ever!’ with a mouth full of skittles.  Emma nods in agreement.  The constant views above the treeline and sweeping mountains are like a lifetime of hiking vistas compressed into 5 hours.  It’s better than I expected myself, and I had high hopes.

Mutianyu

Just as I begin to have a little concern that we have not brought enough water (6 liters seemed like too much at the store.) we cross from the unrestored Jiankou to the fully restored Mutianyu section.

Along with it’s polished and caulked dolomite bricks and graded walkway, there are vendors!  ”I hiked the great wall!’ T-shirts!  Fake Communist Medals! Parasols! and all sorts of other weird crap.  Of course the have water, but we don’t need any quite yet.

Mutianyu is the second most popular area of the wall, although we are as far from it’s entry point as one can get.  It’s still at least an hour until we get to the cable cars that take us back down.  We head there.

On the way there are  steep stairs and a great echo spot where the direction of the wall went straight into a bowl in the mountain side that reflected our voices perfectly.

Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!

We’re tired by hour five of course.  But at least the hiking is easier on the restored wall.    As we approach the cable car, we look at the map to see where is the alpine slide, and it’s unfortunately at least an hour away.  Not only do we not have the energy for another hour but it might even be closed by the time we get there.

In fact the cable car seems closed.  There is no ticket booth open.  No one is around, passengers or attendants.  But the cable car keeps automatically opening and closing the doors of each cab as they pass us and go down the mountain.

Trish and I think for a moment, and together decide to jump in the next car as the doors open.

This freaks Lily out, who has, among other fears, a fear of automatic doors (like on elevators).  Both she and Emma are surprised (below) that we are getting on without waiting for an attendant.  Inside, the cab the doors close safely and we can begin to see our final view of the Great Wall, the mutianyu section continuing it’s run across the mountain ridge. (bottom)

A man yells something in Chinese.  (You can see him in the background of the picture) I guess he went for a bathroom break when the people left.  He yells at us ‘Ticket Ticket Ticket’ and holds up the car long enough for us to acquiesce and promise to buy a ticket at the bottom.

The lady at the bottom is unamused at our ignorance of the proper procedure and makes us sit in the corner for a minute, but I won’t have that for long.  I’ll pay my ticket but it’s not our fault there was no ticket taker or attendant at the top.

The are clearly closing for the day, and I’m glad we made it down in time.  A climb down in the dark would have broken us.

Our ride back is triumphant.  The sun sets on Beijing’s soviet-styled apartments and for most Beijinger’s the Saturday night fun begins.

We’ve had our fun for the day and look forward to bed, after a predictable dinner at McDonalds.  The only hikes that rival this one are Amalfi’s Walk of the Gods, or Wayna Picchu in Peru and we remember those with pride and excitement.

This was one of our best days ever.

Related posts:

1. Asia Itinerary 2011 – China, Thailand, Cambodia (and Pakistan!)
2. A little kick in the ass on our way out: Day 20-21 – Asia – China – Beijing
3. China, Thailand, Cambodia: The Asia 2011 Family adventure itinerary

It’s not that we are trying to save money.  Food in China isn’t expensive.  But the girls have struggled to eat here.  At most Chinese restaurants Emma eats only plain rice (‘with no salt’ as she reminds us) and Lily eats a little pork dumpling and fried rice.  Finding and ordering a meal takes a fair amount of time away from other activities, which include working a lot this week.  We’d rather save the time.

We’ll rest when we get home.

This is a very different week from the last one. Our vacation time is over.    I spend the days working on the east side of Beijing and then come back to the hotel for office calls as the USA wakes up.  Trying to fit in some family time, much less sightseeing, is difficult.

I’m not complaining though.  The flexibility of my work has definitely helped us travel.  But it does make for long days on the road.  We don’t travel to relax.  We can do that at home.

For the girls, our work week in Beijing is like a luxury prison.  At first it’s great.  They could watch Discovery Channel all day (Why did the air the ‘tree man’ over and over, sigh. Get some variety.)

The pool was generally open for them as long as one of us had enough laptop power to go down there and watch them.  And the comforts of a western hotel are nice after the mid-range places we’ve been at.   But after a day or two, they got bored.

I would say though, if you are coming to Beijing with kids, the Hyatt is a great place especially if you get the food option.  It made our stay much, much easier.

The Beijing Olympics

We’ll pick up travel again on Saturday when we go hike the great wall. Until then, there are only a few activities we will do.  One, that I promised a long time ago is the Watercube Happy Magic water park in the Beijing Olympic center.

The Beijing Olympics are a source of deep pride for the Chinese.  I read an anecdote that one particularly orthodox tour guide denied that there had been any deaths at Tienanmen square in 1989 and suggested that the group think of the 2008 Olympics instead.

That might be taking it too far, but they should be proud, partly because they won the most gold medals (the US won the most medals).  And they pulled off a massive investment in construction and transportation.  Yes, the pesky French managed to douse the Olympic flames en route to Beijing, for which I am told, there were diplomatic retributions.

But it’s absolutely amazing that 40 years after the death of Mao and the end of the Great Cultural Revolution, they could do this.

The subway line  was almost completely constructed in the three years leading up to the Olympics.  That’s 150 miles of track in 36 months.  New York City can’t reroute a bus in that amount of time.  Of course, like much of Beijings ultra-rapid skyscraper construction, there are some questions about quality.   A boy was killed this week in Beijing when an escalator malfunctioned and went into reverse, causing a stampede.

The Happy Magic Watercube

Olympic parks are always sad after they are done.   Chinese tourists still go and visit because of the patriotic pride, but that won’t last forever.  The blue watercube that hosted Michel Phelps to his unprecedented 8 gold medals, has been reconditioned with an investment of $50,000,000, into a waterpark, that China claims is the biggest in Asia.

We always try to go to waterparks and amusement parks in other countries.  It’s sort of a litmus test for the culture and people.  We had hilarious experiences at one in Cairo and thought Eurodisney was cruddy.  I don’t think we will be able to make the Happy Valley Amusement park in Beijing, but we’d like to.

Getting into the park requires the usual hassle.  The cab driver drops us off completely on the wrong side of the park, forcing us to walk a mile in the heat.

The park itself requires two tickets, one for entrance to the cube itself and another for the park.  It’s not cheap either – about $120 for the four of us.

I make things more difficult by forgetting my swimsuit.  Fortunately they have some for sale for rip-off prices, but I can’t complain.  It’s my own damn fault.

The kids still remember our trip to the Paris waterpark Aquaboulevard, where the French made me wear a speedo.  Yes, ladies, I look incredibly hot in a speedo, but I still prefer the, um,  flexibility, of a pair of board shorts.  Contrary to rumor we heard, there was no clothing requirement for the water park here in Beijing.

It’s evening already because we had a long work day, so parents are tired.  But the water park is inviting.  There are several slides, a small wave pool, lazy river and other assorted activities.  For an indoor park it’s nice.  Like everything in China it’s packed with people, although I suspect it gets even more busy on weekends and daytime.  I’m glad we came now.

Trish thinks some of the construction is cheap.  I didn’t notice that as much, but there are several slides that are unused, broken or closed off with yellow tape.  Maybe she’s right.

Lily is too small to use some of the big rides and that understandibly makes her sad but she gets over it.  Trish’s review “Mostly happy, not very magic and definitely not a cube.”

Beijing architecture

Most cities develop artitecture gradually as they grow, and if there are distinct styles they are reflected and interpreted over time.  Not so with Beijing.  Architecturally, Beijing has three faces, each uniquiely representative of a distinct historical and economic period.

There is the surviving architecture of Imperial China, the borrowed designs and style of Soviet Russia and the ultra modern chic that dominates today.  Because building has been in spurts it missed any styles before or in between.

The Imperial Chinese architecture is either under government preservation rules or has been demolished.  The elaborate gables, roofs and ornamented styles are instantly recognizable to anyone.

The Soviet architecture of the 1950′s and 60′s included both classic Stalinist styles that can be seen in the Railway station, the main government buildings and the highrise apartment buildings all based on the same blueprint from the 60′s.

Last, but most eye-catching are the ultra modern designs like the CCTV ‘big underpants‘  the Beijing Opera  (called the ‘duck egg’) and the fabulous olympic stadium called the ‘birds nest.’ above)

This one on the upper left was one of the girls favorite.  It looked like the front had been crumpled in.

Food From Yunnan

On Friday we have the pleasure of having a lunch with some Chinese coworkers and friends at a Yunnan  restaurant.  Yunnan is at the center of a number of cultures; Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, Burmese, Han and several local ethnic cultures.  Yunnan food has a very rich and diverse set of flavors and techniques that are somewhat in vogue in Beijing right now.

It especially interesting because most of the dishes are as new to our Chinese friends as they are to us.  It’s funny to watch them eat this hot grassy tofu soup and cubed goat cheese that is cut in little cubes and stir fried with peas.  It doesn’t seem that different for us compared with traditional Han chinese food but to them it’s completely new.

We have two very traditional dishes.  Bolu Fan is sweet, glutinous rice is baked in a pineapple with lots of vegetables and pineapple mixed.  And Qi guo ji, or Chicken steam pot which is chicken parts in an earthen vessel cooked with medicinal herbs and giant hunks of ginger.

Our steam pot also had a fungus that grew on bamboo, which is a little stringy but mostly tasteless.  It was once haute cuisine in China and was served to Henry Kissenger when he came in the early 70′s to reestablish diplomatic relations.

Yunnan food also emphasizes traditional fungi – mushrooms.  They served several delicious kinds.  With a large group you can really enjoy Chinese cuisine as it is meant to be eaten.  You get many different types of food which are served in an order that is selected to vary the types of flavors (hot, sour, sweet) and consistancies.  They don’t do dessert per se.  Sweet items that resemble dessert are served throughout the meal.

The girls get a beautiful little alcove in which to plan and eat plain rice. Lily sleeps in the window and attracts onlookers as we eat.

Made in China

Although Buddhism is the dominant religion, (depending on how you count Communist athiesm) it has been influenced deeply by two systems of thought Daoism and Confuscianism, both of which are unique to China.

Confucianism is the legacy of Kong Fuzi, from around 500 BC, and is a self-improvement philosophy with well articulated beliefs on ethics and social values.  It promotes an active position on making change.  There is belief that humans can and should change their actions and surroundings for the better.

By contrast Daoism is also a system that promotes self-fulfillment, but one does that through wuwei, or nonaction.  The principle here, among many others, is that human suffereing comes from trying to change things they can’t change, and that one should let things play out more.

Both systems came under attack at different times by both the Imperials and the Communists. The two, along with Buddhism make a very complicated tapesty of Chinese religious practice.

A daoist temple

Not many Daoist temples are left because of massive persecution during the great cultural revolution.  But there are two big ones in Beijing left, and on a reccomendation from Gael the driver of our sidecar adventure on Monday, we go to one of them (roof and ceiling pictured above).

In his words, ‘you can see buddhist temples everywere, but only in China can you see a daoist temple”

It’s no longer called a Daoist temple.  To survive in officially atheistic China, it has to be renamed the “Folklore Museum” and indeed some parts are museum-like.  But other parts are a functioning ancient temple.  The most unusual part of the temple is that the perimiter wall is a series of rooms with lifesize dioramas that teach about ethics and the consqeunces of immorality by showing how you will be judged in the afterlife.

But these are not like layers of demonic hell.  They are more like bureaucratic offices,( and in that sense are much more horrifying .)

The idea of getting passed back and forth from the “Department of Petty Officials” to the “Department of Supressing schemes”  is frightening.   It’s true that Daoism was a system of ethics, but some of these seem too conveniently supportive communist society to be completely believed as authentic.

But weirdest of all are the life-size dioramas.  A few of these figures are authentic, to the eye anyway, but most seem to be colorful recreations. Nonetheless, they are incredibly entertaining!

Inside some of the main areas are daoist priests with incense and offerings to the various daoist gods and deities.  Daoism is definitely pan-theistic.

The kids loved this!  What a freaking unexpected place and unexpected result.  I thought it would be ususual, but I had no idea it would be wacky and weird.  We were super glad we came here, even in the heat.

Beijing at Rush Hour

And it is hot.  After that big meal and a hot afternoon in the temple, I’m as thirsty as I’ve been in a long time.  It’s so bad that I am uncomfortable, but I know we’ll grab a cab and be back at the hotel.

For the second day this week, it’s impossible to get a cab in the afternoon in Beijing.  Wednesday, after work, I tried to get a cab at 5:30 and tried unsuccessfully for 45 minutes before trying the metro.  The advice from a friend “good luck’.

The metro at rush hour was nuts.  As a long time New Yorker, I thought nothing on a subway would shock me.  But I was so jammed into a car that I couldn’t get off at my stop.

People were ramming the crowd to get in.  I had to wait for three trains before I got a tiny space.   It took 2 hours total to go a few miles.

And again today, we wait in the heat for an hour looking for a cab.  Most go by us.  Some even wave.  WTF?

Other people looking for cabs keep moving in front of me to get an advantage. But no one gets cabs.

Instead we navigate busses.  The bus ticket takers are pretty helpful, although none spoke english.  I knew my map well-enough, took some good guesses at what they were saying, and got us within a few blocks.  Again it took 90 minutes to go a few miles.

Beijing can be dammed hard to get around.  Tomorrow: The great wall!

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2. A little kick in the ass on our way out: Day 20-21 – Asia – China – Beijing
3. China, Thailand, Cambodia: The Asia 2011 Family adventure itinerary

And it means I have to work more.  I’ve been working on the road a few hours a day, but in Beijing it will be very busy  - at least until the weekend.

Beijing ho!

Landing in Beijing is uncomplicated, except we wait a while for our bags, and they play piano sonatas in the airport, which seems grim and slightly affected.  The drive into town is interesting enough.  There is a mix of old soviet and ultra modern architecture.

The girls are really surprised by the Hyatt hotel, which is much nicer than expected.  The concierge gives me a free upgrade onto the top floor.   Fantastic!  The view, although hazy, is very nice.

For much of the morning I have been furiously texting with a company in Beijing to plan an activity for this evening.  I have decided to go for an expensive tour that I found through trip advisor.  Most of the reviews say “expensive, but worth it”  - the costs, even with discounts for kids is $500 – a blowout to our budget.  But my hunch is this is pretty cool.

We have just enough time to put down our bags  in the room before we have to go.  The girls are eagerly awating the surprise, about which they have only been told that they won’t have to walk a lot, and that it’s super cool.  It seems our drivers are a little late so everyone takes a peak at the swimming pool, which is underground but surprisingly beautiful for an indoor pool.

Beijing by motorbike

And when we come back outside, I see our two drivers in front of two Chang Jiang bikes.  We are taking a four hour city tour on Beijing on classic motorcycles with sidecars.  The girls high-five each other with excitement.  And after a few photographs we head off in the warm, but not sweltering Beijing evening.

As we get up to speed, I briefly worry that we elected to skip the helmets.  Helmets are not compulsory here.  But our guide Gael assured us that there are no highways, and in fact we would be crawling along at low speeds most of the time.  Beijing just has too much traffic, and the girls are in the side-cars.  Parents are on rear seats that are surprisingly comfortable, with springs and a wide seat.

Being out in the open air is really a treat.  The drivers wind up and down hutongs first, which are the side streets and alleys of old Beijing.  Some have stores and restaurants, some seems deserted, some have families cooking dinner outside.

Old Beijing Mansions

Gael, our main driver and tour guide, stops first at Gui Gong Fu, a Qin dynasty mansion for a prince of the Empress Dowager Cixi. (Tsi-shi).  It’s been restored into a Peking Duck house that can do many different size dinners.  If I were here with just Trish, I would definitely come here, but it’s not a family joint.

They have a wisteria that has to be 100 years old and there are rooms with Ming and Qin antiques.  Trish looks like she is smoking a doobie, but she means to be sipping tea (English style I guess).  Already I’m glad to have done this tour.  We would never have seen this spot.

Another old hutong courtyard home is the Huilinh center for the mentally disabled.  They run a day center that helps Chinese with mental disabilities make a little money with crafts and learn some basic skills.  We buy some bracelets as gifts for the girls’s friends at home.  It’s a sweet place.

Cheap pearls

The girls are having a blast.  This may be one of the funnest things we’ve ever done.  Lily needs to go to the bathroom and we’re all ready for some refreshment.

Riding on bikes is dehydrating.  Gael knows every spot in town and decides to take us to the Hongqiao Pearl Market, which is south and a little east of the center.

It’s unassuming from the inside, just knock-off converse and electronics.  We grab drinks from a small stand inside the door of the super-mall.

Surprisingly,  on the top floor are some very inexpensive freshwater pearl shops, a bathroom and an outdoor terrace that overlooks the Temple of Heaven park.  It’s open to the public and we get a nice view in the sunset.

Trish likes some of the pearl necklaces and gets one for $25 or so and Emma buys cute earrings for $2.  This is another great little spot we would never have seen.  And it’s a fantastic introduction to Beijing.

Traffic in the world’s most populous country

Traffic is crazy here!  They don’t quite obey lights, lanes or signals.  But there is sort of an order to things.  It’s not nearly as bad as Cairo, which was a taxi demolition derby.  Fortunately as a motorcycle, we could go anywhere – including bike lanes, sidewalks, the wrong side of the road and through the alleys.  It makes getting around fast, and we never really felt unsafe.

From the Pearl Market, everyone headed north to get our first look at the forbidden city from the outside.  We drive through the front gate and could see soldiers marching in the background of Tienanmen square as they lowered the flag for the evening.

These bikes were designed in WWI

The bikes themselves are part of the fun.  The Cheng Jiang motorcycles are based on an original design from Germany, the BMW R71, the engineering and production capacity of which were traded with the Soviets in the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression treaty of 1939.

The bikes were then improved slightly by the Soviets and used against the Germans in the war.  Afterward they were produced for the Soviet market internally as the Ural, which is still in production and sold mostly to the USA to classic motorcycle hobbyists.

The Soviets and the Chinese had a love affair for the first 15 years of China’s communist control, and they shared everything including the plans for this bike, which is named Cheng Jiang here.

Although it is no longer in production in China, the manufacturer still makes parts, and the tour Beijing Sidecar has 7 of these bikes.  The one I am on stalls a few times, and the speedometer is broken.  But I’m sure we have the oldest bikes because we booked at the last minute.

The only hill in Beijing, and it’s fake.

Then as dusk finally turned to night, we caught the final glimpses of sunlight from the cities highest ‘natural’ spot – Jingshan park, behind the Forbidden City.  When the moat was dug for the Imperial Palace they moved the earth manually to a hill behind, which was useful for ceremonies and accommodated Feng Shui ideals.

Today it’s a public park with the best views of Beijing in the city.  It sits roughly in the center and from there you can see the entire Beijing skyline in 360 degrees.

But the real reason to be up here is to see the roof tops of the Forbidden City, which gives you a sense of how big and dense it is.  I can’t wait to get inside, but that’s almost a week away.

Night life

Now it’s time to see some of Beijing’s night life.  We crawl through the people on Nanlougu Xiang, which is a street that has lots of upscale (but not brand name) stuff.  It looks cute, with restaurants, clothing stores and interesting purchasables, a little like the lower east side in Manhattan is today.  It’s right near the drum tower, which is the old center of the city.

Also very near by is the massive waterfront district of the front and back lakes.  ”Front and Back, I say?”  How boring!  Most Chinese names are like “9 orderly rows of golden goose lake” and “Eagle flies to musical paradise pond”. Are the two most important lakes really called “Front and Back?”  He laughs.  Yeah, it seems Chinese language can be extremely flowery or extraordinarily practical.

The Houhai, and Xihai lakes are bordered end to end with restaurants.  There are boats, including ones you can pilot yourself for rent.  It’s quite a scene and the number of people are staggering.  We vow to come back here before the week is out.

The old and the new

Lastly, we circle Tienanmen Square, with the big portrait of Mao, and the Soviet styled communist party buildings.  It’s a throwback for me, having spent so much time in Russia.  The girls don’t yet appreciate this square for it’s historical significance, which is mostly symbolic.  It has been the official ‘entrance’ to China for centuries and is located right in front of the Forbidden City.

One of the newest buildings in China is the Opera house, which houses three theaters in an area that was once hutongs, but was demolished to create this huge park and egg shaped building that glows in changing colored lights.  The shape is meant to contrast with the rigid square shapes of the Forbidden city and the Soviet architecture.  It’s a stunning sight at night.  I can only imagine what it’s like inside.

And we go back to the hotel.  This has been one of the best four hours we’ve ever spent and it was well worth the money.   I think I would do this again if I come back to Beijing, and it’s the perfect way to start a city trip.  We covered miles of tough city streets in 4 hours that would have taken days to see on foot.

Related posts:

1. A little kick in the ass on our way out: Day 20-21 – Asia – China – Beijing
2. A working week in Beijing: Asia – China Days 15-18
3. China, Thailand, Cambodia: The Asia 2011 Family adventure itinerary