The Great Wall and Others!

As one of the major attratcions of the world, the Great Wall was a site I couldn't wait to see. It was a grand and awesome feature. Even now it is impossible to believe that something this large could be built by people. It goes to show how good the engineering skills of the Chinese were at the time - as well as how long term their thinking was.

Some quick facts:

• Entire construction took over 2000 years (hard to imagine anyone taking on such a project now!!!)
• Stretches about 5660 kms (a bit longer than New York to London!!!!)
• Took one million people to build (equivalent to a fifth of China's working age popluation at that time)
• Also shows how powerful the Emperors of China were - and how much respect they commanded! As well as how much they feared the Mongolians!

Obviously we weren't going to see the entire wall - so we just walked on a portion of it - known as the Mutianyu Section. This particular section was rebuilt during the Ming dynasty (around 1569). The entire section is on top of a hill - so it was necessary to climb up the hill to see the wall. For the less active (lazy?) among us there is also a cable car, and a chairlift as an alternative to climbing. I myself climbed as I believe it allows you to appreciate the difficulty of building the wall much better. If climbing empty handed is hard enough, imagine the effort reqiured to carry the bricks to actually build the wall!!! I think donkeys were used for this though.

The scenery around us was quite good - but as it was winter, all the trees were bald! It would have been an awesome sight it there was either snow, or if the foliage was present on the trees - but alas no such luck! Though a major benefit of this season is that there were not many tourists and so we had a large portion of the wall to ourselves!)

Along the Wall are many watchtowers and turrets (is that the right word?). Most of this section has been preserved really well - though there have been a few restorations. After a good exploration, and many photos with friends (some of which I may email later if my friends send it to me in time - as I didn't take a camera) we decided to come down the toboggan. That's right - this time I didn't climb back down ( I'd already appreciated that difficulty before!!!) and so we all tobogganned down the wall! That was exhilarating - and would have been more so if I didn't have to slow down to avoid crashing into the people in front of me!!!

Other sites we saw in Beijing were The Temple of Heaven, The Temple of Confucius, and a Lama Temple - all of which were beautiful. (Technically that may not be correct for the Temple of Confucius, as it was almost in ruins - but the scaffolding was present - and rest assured, it will be beautiful by the olympics in 2008!!!) Tha Lama Temple also had the largest carving of Buddha from a single tree - 26 metres tall (though 8 of that is underground) - an official Guiness Book Record!!!

One warning about Beijing though is that everything seems to be under renovation for the Olympics. Whether it be Behai Park (a 1000 year old garden of the royal family), the Temple of Confucius, the Temple of Heaven or any of the various other monuments around - you are required to put up with views, footpaths and photo opportunities blocked off by scaffolding or men at work! They really do want the city to be perfect for the olympics!

Forbidden City Continued

As I was saying....

There are many museums inside which show various things from inside the palace. My favorite by far was the Emperor's Clock Collection. There were so many interesting clocks on display. Many were made in China, while a lot were given as presents from Europe (England, France and Switzerland). The clocks were absolutely amazing! My favourite was a golden elephant about a metre tall. This elephant was dragging a chariot which held the clock. Once wound up, the entire elephant (which had wheels) would turn around in circles while pulling the chariot behind. The elephant also moved its trunk and eyes from side to side!!!

Another great clock was one which had a European man holding a quill. Each hour he writes something in Chinese on a piece of paper in front of him. The strokes from his quill are absolutely perfect! In addition, there was a jewellery museum. This was quite different to Indian jewellery and consisted mainly of jade, quartz and other stones (as opposed to the gold, silver and diamonds of India).

In additon, there were also many gardens inside the city.

Beijing continued

Ok continuing now!

As I was saying, Beijing seems a very nice city - definitely not as crowded as I'd imagined. Also, the parks present were very quiet and peaceful. I feel as though there are two different worlds in Beijng. Firstly theres the modern new Bejing which we see from the airport onwards. The second world is Old Beijing - known as the Hutong - these are narrrow alleyways which are preserved from hundreds of years ago. people still live here in the same houses from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Walking down the New Beijing is very different to the Hutong. In New Beijing you might as well be in a any western city, while in the Hutong the charm of Old China is still there. The prices for thingts also varies dramatically between the two places.

We went to a few sights around Beijing - the most important would have to be the Forbidden City. This was the office and residence of the Emperors of China for many generations. The entrance is from Tianamen Square (the world's largest square and can fit 1,000,000 people!!!). On one end of the square is the Mauseoleum of Chairman Mao - where his body is preserved for all to see. This body has laid in the crystal coffin, draped in the flag of the Hammer and Sickle, for almost 30 years now! The dawn flag raising ceremony at Tianneman Square was interesting - except for the fact that I had probably never felt colder, or my hands more frozen, ever in my life!

We enter under the giant portrait of Chairman Mao, through the bridges into the Forbidden City - so called because for centuries no common people were allowed. Another interesting thing is that only one male was allowed into the residential area of the City - and that was the Emperor! All the other people in that area (about 3000 to 4000 I think) were either concubines, or eunuchs. This is a large city, with many interesting sites to see. Many of the buildings have been preserved, and various museums exist inside. The grandeur of Emperor can be appreciated when compared to the hutong just outside - where the commoners lived. (I apologise if my English no longer flows properly - a week of Chinglish will do that to you!)

Ok - the clock tells me that I have to go now (time's up!!)

China Tour

Hi All - sorry for the huuuuuuge delay in between updates!

Well, my India trip was excellent. I spent the remaining time in Chennai (Madras) and visitted as many people as I could before leaving to go to China. I felt really bad that my trip was so short - but that was the longest i could afford to go if I wanted to add China and be back in time for my friend's wedding.

Anyway, we touched down in Beijing on a freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing cold night. I think the temp was -6C. That's the coldest i've personally ever experienced. The next morning we toured around the parks nearby. It was very nice and peaceful! My first impression of Beijing was that it was not as crowded as I had expected. You see, even though the population is 14 million, it is well spread out, so it is not so densely populated. I was also impressed by how clean it was! The traffic was much more orderly than in India (still not as orderly as western countries - but much better than what I expected!) There's still a lot of bicycles around - but there are dedicated lanes for them. It was also veeeery clean, and the infrastructure was ship shape. Seeing this made me a bit sad about India. I had always used the size of India's population as an excuse for why the infrastucture was unable to keep up - but after seeing China I see that a large population need not be an excuse at all! Anyway, my time is running out and I'll have to update this later!