China. More importantly first visit to the First Lounge

[bPeteb]

Which wall section? The bottom photo suggests one of the less visited parts.

Jinshanling. Just over 2.5 hours out of the city. Yes. On the unrestored part very few.

 

[Major]

A great part of the wall

 

[bPeteb]

Sitting in a room with an amazing view near Mt Siguniang and finally have the time to put fingers to keyboard and get this trip report underway.



China has never really been on my radar. I have some major philosophical issues with Chinese New Imperialism. Their human rights record is appalling. Their blatant attempts to change instruction at Australian universities that Chinese fee-paying students attend is unbelievable. Their virtual annexation of the South China Sea. Their ‘purchase’ of numerous African countries. The list goes on. Here we are though. Two weeks in a big loop west and south west from Beijing.

A double status credit offer last year, a desire to keep to keep SG (little did I realise that work travelt would take me well past WP) and only two weeks holiday. I put 10 hours as my max travel distance but stretched to over 11 when my partner finally convinced me Beijing was where we should book.

We’re pretty good independent travellers but last year we broke that mould when we went to Brasil. We booked private tours and guides everywhere we visited. China to us seemed even more difficult to self-organise. We wanted to see places that it just wasn’t worth our time to book and possibly struggle with when we got there. We found a company that wouldn’t take us on an extended shopping tour called Tour-Beijing. We chose a couple of tours – Silk Round from Dunhoung and Jiuzhaigou National Park from Chengdu - and built an itinerary around them.

Our Chengdu tour had to be changed due to major flooding damage to the Jiuzhaigou National Park. We were offered an alternative travelling up into what I suppose are the lower Himalayas to visit Mt Siguniang and the Changping Valley including a couple of highish altitude (300m+) valley walks.

Around these tours we independently booked two stays in Beijing, two internal flights, two fast trains, a stay in Xi’an, a pick up and private guide for the Terracotta Warriors (in hindsight not necessary) and three food tours.

Our itinerary –

Brisbane-Sydney-Beijing QF J
The Emperor Qianmen Beijing three nights
Beijing-Dunhuong Air China Y
Silk Road Tour
Dunhuong-hard seat train-Jiayuguan-deluxe soft sleeper train-Lanzhou-Xiahe-Lanzhou
Fast train (G) Lanxhou-Xi’an Business Class
Grand Mercure Renmin Square two nights
Fast train (D) Xi’an-Chengdu Second class (tried for First Class months out but apparently sold out)
Chengdu Tour
Chengdu-Mt Siguniang-Chengdu
Chengdu-Beijing Hainan Airlines Y
Grand Mercure Capital Beijing
Beijing-Sydney-Brisbane QF J

 

[bPeteb]

31/08/18 Flight

Retro Roo II left Brisbane five minutes early and landed 15 minutes early into Sydney.

Walked pretty much straight onto the transfer bus. My passport as always didn’t work using the reader. They asked if I’d had my glasses on. Um no. The passport is only five years old. I haven’t changed that much.


First ever visit to First Lounge. Asked on arrival if we’d like a spa treatment and of course both said yes. Didn’t expect we’d be able to but obviously early enough (about 9am) to snag two spots – 9.30 and 10.30. Tried all of the champagnes on offer. My favourite was the Taittinger although the ?? rose was a close second. Had already eaten on the flight down so limited ourselves to the eggs bene – one ham and one salmon. I know, so much more on offer but I preferred the champagne tasting to the food.​

Lots of Chinese, of course, who saw the shorter queue and wanted to join but all pointed to the Y queue as their boarding passes were checked.

3A and 4A. I’d sat in 4A both directions to Tokyo and partner suggested that I sit in the ‘odd # aisle’ seat to see what I thought. I agree it’s not as closed in as the ‘even # window’ seat and has more usable space and would pick it for day travel, but not for sleeping.

Had pre-selected meals and they stuck for both of us. Surprise! Exactly same menu as our return flight from Narita in May.

 

[bPeteb]

Meal photos

 

[bPeteb]

Crew was great. CSM came and chatted a couple of times. My PXC550s played up, again, so resorted to the terrible QF headphones to listen to music. Two cabin J so no issues with toilets. A bit of turbulence on and off during the flight.


Into Beijing about 20 minutes late (I think). Beijing hosting some China-Africa Co-operation conference. Luckily we got to immigration in the first 20 or so people as the queue built behind us to hundreds and only two immigration booths open. About 10 open for the African conference delegates…


Took a cab from the cab queue. Driver put meter straight on. Showed him hotel details from photo I’d taken on hotel website.


Hotel is in a walking street area and that confused him completely. He switched meter off as we drove around in circles for a while but eventually he realised he just had to pull over and we would have to walk (we knew that). He was lovely.


Walked into an entirely black complex of walking streets. No lights anywhere. Partner had his GPS on and could see where hotel should be but I went into first hotel I saw and asked for directions. Porter came out and used his phone to direct us in English.


First impression of hotel wow. Lobby like a modern art gallery. Once we got a keycard that would get us onto our floor we were into our Floating House room. Black and more black but with two clouds floating above us that moved when the lights were on. Free minibar with four beers plus soft drink and extra water. La Occitaine toiletries. Beautiful towels and linen.


It was well after 1am when we hit the sheets.​

 

[bPeteb]

Haven't had any chance to post but have typed a few so will keep typing in the flight home (in the morning) and will get this trip report done.

Sat in the very, very ordinary CX lounge at Beijing Capital waiting for our delayed by 60 minutes flight home. Bit like sitting in a sauna. It'll be a relief to get on the plane.

This had been an amazing experience. Looking forward to sharing it.

Highlights? Deserted Great Wall. Panda babies!!!

 

[bPeteb]

Apologies for delay. Both back to work last Tuesday, then photo editing. This will still take a while to post...

Some hotel pictures first

The closest cloud actually moved!

Free minibar, replenished each day

The pretty noisy gangway from lift lobby to our room. Pity those with rooms that opened off this space.

The very dark bathroom

 

[bPeteb]

Beijing

Comfy bed, comfy pillows but didn’t realise we had electric bloc our roller blinds so woke up wit the dawn, as usual.

Good breakfast in another great space although tables and chairs a bit of form over function. The heavy weight chairs were at least on wheels.



Roof top pool and view




Hallway to restaurant

 

[bPeteb]

Hotel is just off Qianman Street that runs straight up towards Mao’s Memorial Hall and Tianamen.





Aim was Tian’anmen Square then whatever we got to but we were ready for some walking and that’s what we did.

Couldn’t get close to Tian’anmen. Everything was barricaded off for the same China-African meeting that had caused issues at the airport. It became the theme for the day.

We walked a couple of blocks west and along the edges of some hutongs and ended up at Beihai Park with the rest of the weekend throng. It was a beautiful day so why not take a wander around a park, or take one of the hilarious boats out on the lake.

 

[bPeteb]

Up Qionghua Island then across to Jingshan Park where there’s a great view of the Forbiddden Palace from the top.

 

[bPeteb]

We wanted to see the Olympic buildings so we walked a very long way to a metro with the aim of getting off at Olympic Sports Centre and getting back on at Olympic Green. Only the metro didn’t stop at Sports Centre. We got off at O Green and went back down the line and it didn’t stop again but this time I realised we went through it and it was in near total darkness.

Got off at Beitucheng and started walking towards the buildings. Fenced off a block away, for that damn African meeting. We saw the Bird’s Nest from afar. Got a bit closer to the Cube that even from as close as we got was obvious had seen better days.





Went up the Olympic Park Observation Tower Went up the Olympic Park Observation Tower

 

[bPeteb]

where we had a very strange encounter. We’ve briefly been to China once before on a cruise and noticed we were getting our photo taken every now and then. This time the photographs reached a whole new level. On this first occasion we had noticed what seemed to be a very young couple, maybe 18ish, kind of glancing at us.

Finally the young guy came over and in faltering English asked what I thought was if I could take their photo. Only that’s not what he wanted. He wanted a photo with me. We stood together then he asked if he could put his arm around my shoulder. A number of photos followed. Super weird. After my first of what became quite a few entries into the photo albums of China we got outta there and continued our very long walk.



more importantly some of and from the tower

 

[bPeteb]

We got to Forest Park which would have been a lovely place to spend a couple of hours wandering around the beautiful gardens and parklands



but decided it was time to Metro back to the hotel.

Had Peking duck in a restaurant around the corner from the hotel. It was ok. We could have chosen a better restaurant but we were just going through the motions.

 

[bPeteb]

Beijing - Great Wall Jinshanling

We chose Jinshanling after researching where we could walk with minimal crowd on a combination of restored and unrestored. We booked through Tour Beijing because we had a credit with them due to the changes to our booked and paid tours.

It was a great choice. Our guide David came and met us at the hotel Jinshanling is over two hours outside of Beijing. For our about USD150 each we got David, a driver and a black VW Passat to get us there and back.

It was drizzling when we got there. I had bad memories of our very wet Inca Trail experience – slippery granite and rain are not my friends.



I’d brought my trekking poles just for this and they got some use but ended up being a hindrance that David ended up carrying for me.

The drizzle stopped and rain jackets came off. We headed along the partially restored wall and eventually onto unrestored.

 

[bPeteb]

There was hardly a soul. I think we say maybe 10 people. The mist made it so magical.



Well, magical except for the constant singing being broadcast from somewhere down below the wall. We walked as far as we could. The ‘do not enter, military area’ brought us to an abrupt halt. It was either five or six towers.



We retraced our steps and met back up with David. We’d both expected him to fill us in on lots more of the wall’s history but maybe us saying we just wanted to take photos said to him don’t talk. Not sure.

We then walked along the fully restored section where there a lot more people.



Maybe four more towers? Not sure. The mist and grey cleared and it turned into a spectacular day.

 

[bPeteb]

We had the first of many multi-course lunches at a little restaurant on the way out of Jinshanling



then dozed on the two hour drive back to Beijing. I had a feeling lunch was included, and since coming home that was confirmed, but we did pay for it.

Went in search of an ATM so we had some money to start the following day. Had read not to use ATMs anywhere but in a staffed bank branch but of course disregarded that and used one in a store near the Hotel. Had a scare when the ATM went into some weird cycle with our citibank card in it. After what seemed like an hour but was more like five minutes the card was ejected. Crisis averted.

Early night as we had a very early start in the morning.



Our Silk Road tour was about to begin.

 

[bPeteb]

Beijing – Dunhuang

Taxi driver was waiting for us when we got down to reception at sometime just after 4am. Our flight to Dunhuang was at 6:35. Fixed price of 200 instead of metered (120ish). It annoyed me but whatever. It had taken nearly an hour to get in from the airport three nights before but I thought maybe at 4 it would be quicker. We’d been told be there two hours before a flight, even domestic, to allow for security.

The taxi took under 40 minutes. Security into terminal about one minute. Self check-in and self baggage drop (easy English instructions) took about another 10 minutes and proper security another five. We were through into departures in about an hour all up.

Coffee in KFC (sad, I know) but it was big and hot. Custard tarts as well. Delicious



Beijing peas-souper


Boarded our 738 on hard standing. Flight left a bit late and landed a bit later.



Decent leg room. Breakfast was provided.


The desert below us started what felt like not that long out of Beijing. We saw some dunes that were obviously as high as large hills/small mountains. Wow.

 

[bPeteb]

Very modern airport built against a backdrop of sand dunes and mountains. Quite amazing.



We’d changed the Silk Road tour to reverse the order. Instead of starting in Lanzhou and ending in Dunhuang we did the reverse so we didn’t backtrack. We’d finish in Lanzhou instead of Xi’an as we wanted to book fast train between the two. Tour Beijing had no issues with our changes.

Our second Tour Beijing guide Helen was waiting for us. Very enthusiastic but very obviously not with as good a grasp of English as I’d hoped. We paid lots for these tours and English speaking to me means English speaking. Al was a lot more ok with it over the next five days than I was.

I think we’d been sat in the car about five minutes when Helen asked if we wanted to see a show that night. I’d seen a couple on offer and Lonely Planet recommended one. We said we’d think about it. Lots of vineyards on the way from the airport to the city. The area is ‘famous’ for its ice wine.



As we pulled into the hotel Helen told us the Dunhuang Hotel was the best hotel in the city. We saw some much flashier places so might have been from her own experience. In the lobby we were again asked about the show and relented. From my perspective it was hell expensive and from the C seats we ended up jumping twice to the A seats. Nearly 800 yuan ($160). Cash of course. Better be good. The rest of the day until 4 was ours. A bit odd considering what we’d spent.

Nice hotel room but surely not the best hotel in Dunhuang
No problems with us asking for a double room. It was never a problem the whole trip but our guide was usually asked.

 

[bPeteb]

Super clean city. Considering it’s in the desert the dust was minimal but it was very still during our couple of days there. Seemed very prosperous but very quiet at the same time. Saw one other Caucasian during our long walk around the city.