Post #20 - October 31, 2012 - Beijing, China

Patty here....

We have been busy trying to finalize our plans for China which is why I am posting late. There's so much to see and we only have 30 days in China so we obviously want to make wise decisions. We are also discovering we have a slight despise for most things touristy. So, we really want to go off the beaten track a bit here. And according to Jeff's friend Dale, China is a safe country to do so. We're having dinner with him again tonight to get his input on where he thinks we should go so hopefully everything will be ironed out soon.

Yesterday we were on the Great Wall of China!! It was an entire day trip that got us out of bed at 6 am. We scurried off to the bus to meet our fellow travelers and departed at 6:30 am for the wall. The bus driver had luke warm McDonald's coffees and weird Egg Mc Muffins waiting for us. The sausages inside the Egg McMuffins looked a dark pink colour and tasted kinda funky but we ate them. After 3 hours travelling through what looked like the sort of terrain you'd see in a western movie, we arrived at the base of the wall.

Our tour guide recommended we take the cable car up to the top of the mountains where the hike began. This added to the cost of an already pretty expensive day... but we followed her recommendation. Later we learned we probably could have made it up to the top faster on our own in a much less death defying fashion. The cable cars were slow and up very high.

 

 Once we got up there and got going with our hike, we were greeted by some overly friendly locals. They kept near us for quite awhile trying to converse with us using their clearly minimal English, offering to take pictures, sharing with us they were from Mongolia and smiling at us constantly. After 10 mins, we started to realize we were clearly being followed. Not sure why we were the unlucky chosen ones, but they ended up following us for 30 god damn minutes. There was one lady who had greeted us first I think, who seemed to think she had claimed us for herself because she started scolding another lady who I started conversing with. The other lady was a much better sales person; personable, and much more genuine. The moment I asked the nicer lady if she had kids, the other lady could see I was warming up to her and she started screaming at her. Then a third lady got involved in the scuffle and both were yelling at the nicer lady who ignored them and looked at me with desperation kindly asking that we look at her souvenirs and buy something from her. This bickering between them went on for 10 mins when it felt like it could get out of hand. As they were bickering, I told Jeff "hey I think they're fighting over us".

At this point Jeff and I had ran out of patience. We agreed we should make a break for it so as the one lady was yelling with her eyes closed like a small child having a temper tantrum, we ran to the next post as fast as we could. I ended up tripping on some stairs landing on my knee, and putting a small dent in camera lense (nothing serious). The fall didn't stop me, we kept running for another minute or two until we were sure we had lost them. There's a hilarious picture of my back turned to the camera with my arms up in victory at the top of a post on the wall. You would think I had climbed to the top of a very difficult climb, but no.... this was in celebration of good riddens! Even the ladies stalking us began laughing as we started running away... It is kind of funny in a way, but the whole spectacle was also kind of sad. Jeff thought they were pretending to fight to annoy us enough that we would pay them off. I think they were actually fighting over us. If not, then they were talented actresses. But in any case, their desperation made it very difficult to show them kindness. I think Jeff and I both felt stuck between a rock and a hard place, because you want to empathize with these people, but they don't look at you like human beings. They look at you like you're dinner. It's an unnerving, uncomfortable feeling and the whole thing for me kind of set me off on the wrong foot. I ended up getting over it and we took some amazing pictures but the ordeal stuck with me for most of the day.

The weather was perfect yesterday. Not too hot or cold and it was mostly sunny. We couldn't have asked for much better unless there was some fog around the mountains to go with our sunny day. I only wish we could post some of our pictures, but sadly the internet connection is WAY too slow to do much here. We'll post pics as soon as possible. Overall, the wall was amazing. It stretches as far as the eye can see! We hiked for a total of 3 hours along the actual wall itself. We almost made it to the last post - where the wall is no longer hikeable, but, we were in a rush a to get back to the base for lunch.

We got back, had a decent lunch and then slept most of the way home. We were exhausted! We ended up  having dinner at our hostel which turned out to be our best meal so far in China. It was excellent. We ordered two 600ml Chinese beers at $0.60 a piece, a dish with spicy chicken with green peppers, onions and black beans which also came with a big portion of white rice and we also ordered another dish with shredded potatoes and onions with white rice on the side. The whole meal came out to less than $10!

Today we're venturing out into Beijeng to do some bargaining and get some good deals on silk and pearls - hopefully the real things. I did some research on discerning fakes from real ones but sometimes the fakes are too good to recognize. Anyways, wish us luck. These vendors are said to be verrrry feisty. But, thanks to The North West Company, I can be feisty too! I am pumped. I haven't practiced by bartering skills in a while. Good to time to brush up.

Ciao for now,

Patty