In February 2007 i found a very good offer of the Malev Airlines for return flight tickets from Prague to Beijing, so i decided to move the planned journey to China from April to March. I applied for the chinese visa and 3 weeks later i was in a plane to Beijing.

Countries visited: China
Travelperiod: 3/2007
Total costs: 390 Euro (air ticket) + 220 Euro (in China) + 900 CZK (chinese visa)

I landed more than 24 hours ago and still having a shock bit - i knew that Beijing is big and hustling bustling, but the reality is yet somewhere else. But firstly about the previous day, cause yesterday i went to bed around 18 hundred (thanks to the 7 hrs time shift), then i woke up at 22:30, but didn't force myself to go the PC and write somethin down.

my room in Beijing Leo Hostel

Beijing Railway Station

Chinese Parliament and the Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Gate

Taichi training in park next to Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven

Military museum in Beijing

inside of the Forbidden City

the Beijing routine

welcome to Datong

Yungang Grottoes

me and one of the big statues

lunch in a restaurant in Datong

chinese girl in Pingyao

ancient walls around Pingyao Old Town

lunch in a restaurant in Datong

welcome to Xian

the Drum Tower

me by the Terracota Army

Terracotta Army

street fast-food in the Moslem Quarter in Xian

in the streets of Xian

the Great Chinese Wall - Mutianyu section

Tiananmen Square by dusk

The flight from Prague to Budapest was very short, lasted only one hour and only 10 people were onboard. On the other hand the onward flight from Hungary with chinese Hainan Airlines to Beijing was quite long and the plane was almost full. Considering the money i paid for the return ticket, i would accept to sit on a wooden bench and not being served during the whole flight, but the service was really above the average and i even had two seats just for myself.
We landed at Beijing Capital on a very foggy morning at 6:30. The Capital Airport here is huge! When entering China, one has to fill out 3 forms. Health and quarantine check, entry card and customs form. I was expecting long queues, but all went very smooth and in 15 minutes i officialy entered into China. First i started to look for exhange office, but all banks were closed yet and the only option how to get some Renminbi was to use an AEM from Travelex. I changed 50 USD for which i was charged more than 4 USD processing fee. Good rip off! But i finally had RMB and headed to busterminal and took a bus which was going to downtown. I got off at Beijing Main Railway Station (Beijing Zhan) and was just watching on the crowds of people, bicycles, cars and buses for a while.
I couldn't find the hostel i have chosen on the Hostelworld, so i took subway to Qianmen Square and there i found another one. I stay in a hutong area, which are old parts of Beijing with small houses and narrow streets full of vendors and shops. It' s very simple, but costs only 5 Euro for night and i have a 4 bedroom just for myself. I was quite tired, but forced myself to go out to the Tiananmen Square which is only some 10 mins walk from my hostel. In the end i made quite a big tour around. Then i was really feeling like i was dead, so i took subway back to hostel and went to bed around 5pm.
As i gone to bed at 5pm, i woke up at half past midnight (nice jetleg) and couldn't fall asleep again. So i was just laying in my bed and doing nothing. At 5 o'clock i forced myself to go out. I walked to Tiananmen Square where at half past 6 a flag ceremony was taking place. The soldiers bring a huge chinese flag, national anthem sounds from the loud speakers around the whole square and the flag is raised up the flagpole. There were crowds of Chinese watching this ceremony. Afterwards, police cars started to drive around the square and noticing something in Chinese from the loudspeakers. The crowd started to leave the square and it got closed (maybe it was something because of the gathering of the Chinese parliament which is taking place right now and it's huge building is right on the square). So i headed towards the Forbidden city, but it was closed yet and i was lazy to wait for 1 and half hour, so in the end i made a walk through some hutong area to Wangfujing shopping district, where i took some breakfast and visited maybe 7 storey (or how much that, anyway, it was huge like almost everything here) bookstore and found some really good chinese learnbooks and dictionaries - i immediately bought one for some 3 Euro. Then i walked by foot back to hostel and gone sleep in the late afternoon again.
I woke up again in the middle of the night and again couldn't fall asleep after that. But it's getting better, today it was since 2 AM. I left the hostel at 6 and as the day before headed to Tiananmen Square, where crowds were already gathering for the Flag Ceremony. Today the sun was shining right from the early morning, while on the first two days first sunrays appeared only during the afternoon. Well, shining, you have to imagine, that the sun doesn't shine sharp here, it's nearly always covered by smog. I decided to take a walk from Tiananmen to the Temple of Heaven, which should have been some 2km or so away, but in the end it was more.
Temple of Heaven is located in the middle of a big park. You have to pay small entrance fee to enter the park and then extra money for visiting the temple. Although it was early morning a lot chinese people gathered in the park for training taiji or just walking around. After some quarter hour walk i finally saw the Temple of Heaven... simply a great piece of architecture. I spent maybe a hour there, but the crowds started to stream around, so i left and walked thru the park towards north, there took a bus to Qianmen and walked to hostel for some lunch.
The plan for the afternoon was clear - get a train ticket to Pingyao or Datong - both in the Shanxi province, which is, by chinese standards, just around the corner - some 400 km to the West. I had to get to the Beijing Xi Zhan (west railway station - which should be the largest in the world) from where the trains leave. In China when you want to buy tickets you have to buy them either on the station from where the train leaves or use some travel agency which will buy it for you, charging some fee for that. I took subway, but bought a wrong ticket so i had to get off 2 stations earlier. Then i walked for some 30 mins and finally saw the huge railway building and the thousands of people around. It was so big, that i nearly got afraid of that.
I headed inside one of the ticketing halls (was the only Westerner), wrote on a piece of paper number of the train, destination, time and type of seat (in chinese trains there are four categories - hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper and soft sleeper, while hard seat is the cheapest, but the seat is not guaranteed there, so it's possible that you will have to stay whole ride) and started to wait one of the queues. I came to the counter, passed my paper to the lady, but the tickets to the ancient town Pingyao in the Shanxi province (some 650km southwest from Beijing), were sold out, so i asked for Datong, which is also in Shanxi province, but in the north, close to border with Inner Mongolia and the famous Yungang Grottoes (UNESCO Site). There were some free hard sleepers on this train so i took one - 380km, 6 and half hours, less than 8 Euro.
On the way back to subway station i walked along a communist styled building, apparently designed by the Soviets - almost the same looking building can be found in Moscow, Warsaw, Riga and Prague. This building was People's Revolution Museum. And it was 45 mins to close, so i bought a ticket and got in. Long and broad corridors, marble everywhere and exhibition of the Chinese Liberation Army and army equipment which helped China in wars against all the occupants. They even placed a 20 meters tall missile in one of the halls. At 5pm i was kicked out, jumped on the subway to Tiananmen and headed back to hostel, where i have hit the hay - it was a long day.
Today's morning was so grey and foggy and cold. I took some small breakfast at the hostel and headed quickly to Forbidden city, because they were opening at 8:30. As i came there, crowds of people were already streaming around. I bought a ticket to Tiananmen Gate, which is between Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city. From the balcony of this gate, politicians made speeches to the crowds. And from here one can see how big this square is. After this i finally continued to the Forbidden City, which was a seat of the emperors for hundreds of years and is a unique closed complex of palaces and gates.
The site is really wonderful, but the crowd of tourists was simply too big. But one could still find some peaceful places there. After that, i visited a view point which is north of the Forbidden city, but the visibility was just few hundreds of meters, so i could see only the northern part of the complex. I had some time yet, so i took bus to the Silk market, which is a big, 7 storey indoor market with hundreds of small shops. Back at the hostel, after packing and dinner i checked out and headed to Beijing Railway Station and now i sit in a netcafe writing these lines. In an hour i have to move to the Beijing West Railway Station, from where my train leaves at 23:30 and tomorrow morning at 6:30 i should be in Datong - one of the most polluted cities in China, but there are some UNESCO sites around.
Last night i took the sleeper train from Beijing to Datong. On the 7 hours long ride i slept not more than 3 hours. The air in the railcar was dry and because the bunks in hard sleeper cars are open, i couldn't sleep very well. We arrived to Datong railway station at 6:50 in the morning and i exactly knew the scenario after i get off the train. I've read couple of travel blogs and everyone wrote about a guy who works for CITS - Chinese state owned travel agency, who speaks English very well and can help with ticket booking and tours around Datong. And so it was in my case. The guy contacted me right after i left the platform, introduced himself and said, that he works for the CITS. Normally i wouldn't follow him, because on my trip i want to do everything by my own, but Datong is bit off the beaten path. Originally i wanted to stay here for one night, but already the first minutes of breathing here told me, that i should leave asap. Datong is the 3rd most polluted city in China, 1/10 of the world's coal production comes from around here and the coal mines are really everywhere you look. So you can imagine what a fresh air here is. It's horrible, i'm here for some ten hours and i'm coughing and having scrape in my neck. I think that today's stay in Datong has shorten my life some 10 days at least. But why did i hit Datong? There are some great sites around - Yungang Grottoes (UNESCO), Hanging Temple, Wutai Shan Temples or Hengshan Mountain.
At the CITS office i asked the guy for a ticket to ancient town of Pingyao, but they were sold out, so i headed to cashier and took ticket to Taiyuan which were much easier to get, because it's the capital of Shanxi province and from there it's only 100km to Pingyao. After i finally left the station and took a public bus to the Yungang Caves, which are some 18km to the west. In the bus i met a girl and guy from France, so i could have a chat with someone during the ride. We arrived to the caves and the light snowfall started. Datong itself is some 1100 metres above the sea level and the caves are probably some 200 metres higher - some snow rests were laying around yet. The caves were simply magnificient. There are around 50 000 Buddha statues, while some of them are around 20 metres tall. A must see. Unfortunately the coal mining industry around damages the statues significantly. While taking photos of the statues i have started to chat with Linda, a girl from Sweden, who is travelling around China for some time already. We decided to go together back to Datong and get some lunch. We went to quite fancy restaurant and got tons of food. After that we took a taxi to downtown and now we sit in a netcafe near railway station and trying to beat the time. I leave at 22:22 to Taiyuan and she some 40 minutes later directly to Pingyao.
So i finally left Datong on Monday evening. As i boarded my train to Taiyuan i met another girl, who is travelling alone, Debbie from England. She was also going to Pingyao over Taiyuan, so it's great that i will not have to travel solo. This train ride was okey, because in our car were only 10 people and noone was snoring or coughing. We arrived Taiyuan at 5:30 in the morning and straight headed to the ticket office, where some guy helped us to buy tickets to Pingyao. We had hard seats, which is the lowest class, but the ride should take only 2 and half hours. The train was really crowded, inside the car was cold, dirty and everyone was spitting and smoking there. But we survived that and at 9:30 in the morning we got off in Pingyao train station. We denied all the taxi and hotel offers and headed to Yamen Hostel in the Old Town. The old part of Pingyao is really wonderful and is surrounded by well preserved ancient walls.
The only negative right now is that, that they do some sewage construction in the streets. The hostel is great, located in an old house, with nice rooms and it's only 3 Euro for YHA members. After arrival i took a nap and then headed for a tour around and to take some pictures. Pingyao is on the UNESCO list and in the peak season is a target of many tourists. So the locals trying to rip you off or overprice things that much, that it's more expensive than back home. I wanted to leave Pingyao today, but there's a problem with getting sleeper tickets to Xian or Luoyang, so i have to wait till tomorrow for a morning bus to Xian, which is another 600km to the southwest. It should be a seat bus, but Debbie goes with the same one, so the ride will hopefully not be boring or that long. Today i'm taking a rest, make some laundry of my dirty(!) clothes and i'll probably borrow a bike here and make some ride around.
Yesterday, early in the morning, the guy from hostel took us (me and Debbie) to the highway where we could jump into the bus to Xi'an. As we got in, the bus was almost empty, but later it stopped few times on the highway and some other chinese men got into and in the end it was almost full. The bus ride was quite okey, they played some movies with Jackie Chan with english subtitles. On the way we also crossed the Yellow river, where we finally left the Shanxi province (i traveled this province from the very north to the very south) and entered the Shaanxi province. After nearly 7 hours we were in Xian (1250km southwest from Beijing).
Big city, maybe around 7 million people, but i like it more than Beijing. I said good bye to Debbie and headed to train station and started to wait one of the queues. At the counter it went quite smooth, my basic Chinese was enough to buy a trainticket. So i have a direct hard sleeper ticket for Sunday late afternoon to Beijing, 1250km, 13,5 hours, 34 USD. After leaving the chaos at the train station i walked slowly by foot thru this big city, which is surrounded by well preserved ancient city walls, to the main square. I have chosen the Han Tang Inn hostel to stay, because it's only 5 minutes walk from the Bell Tower and it belongs to YHA. So i get a discount here ;-). In the evening i went to the Moslem market (there's a Moslem minority here and you can even find mosques here), bought some nice souvenirs and got dinner at quite fancy restaurant for 40 kuai.
On my today's schedule was one of the most famous sites in the whole of China - the Terracotta Army, which is located 30 kilometres east of Xi'an. There are some local agencies who can organise this tour for up to 350 kuai (35 Euro), where the tour includes guide, lunch, transportation etc. No hassle, no fuss. Hostel where i'm staying offers this for 160. I wanted to go by my own and maybe stop on some other places on the way, so i headed by bus to the main railway station and of course found a local bus going to the Terracotta site. It was only 7 kuai and the entire ride took something around an hour. Yet on the way, one of the bus stops was next to some cable railway, which was climbing a steep peak above. I decided to make a stop here on the way back. After exiting the bus one has to walk quite a long way to the entrance of the Terracotta Army site.
The entrance was 90 kuai and there was a discount for students, but only for chinese ones. Terracotta army was not that good as i excepted. There are three pits, while in 2nd and 3rd there is really nearly nothing to see. The pit number one, was the biggest and only there one could see the rests of the army and could make photos of the standing soldiers. The whole visit took me maybe 1 and half hour only, so i had plenty of time for visiting some other place. I headed back to the bus station and got off by the cable car. I wanted to climb by foot, but quite soon i found out, that my shoes are not appropriate for this terrain as it was quite steep. So i bought a round trip ticket for 40 Yuan. The cable car was an austrian made Doppelmayr and was running very slowly. As the cabine gained the height, i had a wonderful view on the whole city of Lintong (around 200 000 inhabitants). As i reached the top station (1200m) of the cable car, i wanted to go further up to another higher peak, but they wanted 45 kuai for the entrance. Six dollars for entering a wood? No, thank you. So i just walked to the view terrace and took some photos. Later a young chinese guy and his girlfriend came to the viewpoint and started to talk to me. They spoke almost zero English, so it was quite funny with my Chinese, but they understood what i was saying. I got back down, took the bus back to Xi'an, walked to the hostel and took just a short nap, which ended on today's morning :-).
My third and also the last day in Xi'an was quite vague and boring as i didn't have any special programme, so i just walked around, looked into the shops and tried to survive the unbelievable crowds of people in the streets. At 4pm i jumped into the bus 611 which took me to the Xian main railway station, where, as usually a few thousands of people were streaming in and out, in and out...
I got thru the ticket check, then thru the backage check (boarding train in China is a bit like to board an airplane) and finally i could start waiting the huge queue for the train. They have let us to board already half an hour before departure, but as i got in the railcar, i found out, that i should have had board as the last one, because inside was so hot and unbreatheable air. With some 10 minutes delay, we finally started the 1250km journey from Xian to Beijing and also the airconditioning started to work. The first 30 minutes of the ride were quite boring, but then group of chinese from the next compartment invited me to join them. There were 2 men over 50, one guy around 30 (he spoke some English), one guy maybe 24, one woman around 30 and a girl around 23. They were all very happy, that they can talk to me. Later one of the older men, got a phonecall, that his grandson was just born, so he bought some beers and we were chatting and drinking until they have hit the lights off in the railcar. We arrived Beijing West at 6:30 in the morning, i said good bye to all of them and everyone of us disappeared in the crowd.
From the Beijing West Railway station i took subway to the Beijing Bell Tower Hostel, for which i found a leaflet in the hostel in Xian. I checked in and paid for one night only, which a little bit later showed up as a very good idea, because the hostel was not good. I didn't have anything planned for this day, the only two things which i wanted to visit before i leave, were The Great Wall and Tianjin. I was not sure which to take first, but i decided to look for some bus to the Great Wall (there are again some organised tours, but i wanted to go by my own) and then go to Tianjin for the afternoon. I didn't find any info about a bus which would take me to the Simatai Great Wall section, but i found that there should be some bus going to Mutianyu section, which is more touristy than Simatai, but still much better than the tourist trap section at Badaling.
As i arrived to the subway station from which the buses should run to the Great Wall, i found out that no such bus goes from there, so headed to Dong Zhi Men bus terminal, where the chances for Great Wall bus were higher. The bus terminal there was an extremely chaotic place, no English, no rules, no order. After maybe one hour of walking around i found a bus no. 916 which should go to the Mutianyu Great Wall section. So i got in, bought a ticket for 11 kuai and the journey towards Great Wall started. After more than an hour ride i finally saw mountains where the Wall is located. Suddenly the bus stopped and the ticket lady was saying to me, that i should get off, because this bus doesn't go directly to the Mutianyu wall section. Great, so why did i ask the driver before i got in? So i was on an outskirts of a city called Huairou, some 20km from the Wall. Right next to the place where the bus stopped, were staying some taxis, which of course were very interested in taking me. After some haggling i agreed with one of them on a price of 50 kuai for both ways. He took me to the entrance of the Wall area and i wanted to pay him for the ride. He wanted to earn well on my account and wanted 50 kuai for only one way. I stopped trying to speak with him in Chinese and stopped to be friendly. In the end after an quarter hour of disputing i paid him 25 kuai and said that i will pay the rest as we come back. At this moment i was decided, that i'm not gonna take him for the way back. On the parking place were a lot of other taxis, which could take me back to the town for some 15 or 20 kuai. So i left my "taxi driver" waiting on the parking, bought the entrance ticket and headed towards the Great Wall.
The Wall was really great! This section was partially restored, but not many tourists were here. I walked the left part, which was peopleless. As i walked along the wall, i noticed, that i could walk back to town thru one of the valley. So my little taxi driver, you wanted to rip me off, you will wait! I walked to the end of the wall section, there climbed the Wall down, found a path which led me some 5 kilometres through the valley back to the main road, which i walked along some other 2km back to the town. There i took again the 916 bus to Beijing.
I spent my last day in Beijing, walked around, did some shopping and was just enjoying the atmosphere. Then head to Beijing Capital Airport, then Budapest, then Prague and back to the real life.