Trans - Siberian part 5 - Beijing (iv)

Moving on.

"Day 5, Saturday the 8th of December 2012.  Bus to the Great Wall.

On my way out to one of the prerequisites.
Up early this morning to grab lunch for the great wall trip and to check out.  The little old lady in the tiny store at the end of the road insisted on me not buying some plastic wrapped French bread like I wanted but instead held out a packet of weird Tiaramasu like things towards me, she looked so sweet, smiling and curtsying slightly with her head tilted to one side, nodding encouragement.  She tried to make me buy two packs, the sly old thing, but I only bought the one.  

On the bus, which I caught at a hostel a few doors up, I met 2 Irish people, one, a girl from Kilkenny, is travelling home for Christmas.  The other is from KerryPike in Cork! Hes the nephew of Mags MacCarthy from UCC!  When he was young he was Babysat by none other then Gillian Horgan, an old Drama society colleague also at UCC.  The madness of the world's coincidences.  He studies in Shanghai and is on a day trip with his American colleagues to see Beijing. 

 We drive on. 

We're in the foothills now of the mountains that have lain on the horizon since leaving Beijing.  All seems sparse and rocky.  I hadn't realised the wall was so far out.  All the more impressive as of course, the further out it is from its central point - the forbidden city, the larger is its radius."

This last is a plain error,  the wall does not surround Beijing at all, as I misunderstood it too after glimpsing a frankly misleading map back in the city.  In fact it does the following:

The Great wall's course

 The course of the wall I would be walking that day was the Jinshanling section of it.  About a 4 hour walk.  My record of it in my journal is pretty much all over the place, events took on a life of their own, and despite spending my time in pretty much a single compartment of a train for days at a time I would be well along the way to Lake Baikal in Central Russia before I managed to complete my description of the wonderful thing.

The wall

So, I'll leave out the dates and such for now.  See if I can construct a narrative.  The next day I wrote this.

"The wall was far beyond where I thought it was, all the way to the furthest circle of mountains, and right on top.  It was the height of the thing I wasn't expecting, that is to say, how high the land it was built on is, right atop the mountain.  We marched up to the wall and then along it for about 3 and a half hours.  I cannot say how amazing it was.  Its no exaggeration to say it was probably the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in my life. 

A wall, not particularly tall, following the curve of the mountains, its peaks and troughs, as far as the eye could see.  Just a grey snake, rising and dipping over the horizon, all looking out over the most magnificent views, valleys and hills and a distant motorway arching its way between the far away mountain passes.

I spent most of the time in the lead with our guide Jaki - he didn't say much, just walked along before us with a vaguely bored expression.  Gelled hair, leather jacket and the air of a man who'd walked this walk a thousand times before.  Must be incredibly fit.  For indeed it was a hell of a walk, almost vertical ruined steps, then down again, past defensive structures like the one on the right. 

The steps, being quite steep, are in places split in two, right up the middles.  On their left side are staggered platforms, like wider larger steps running along side the standard steps, each larger platform is bounded across its front, by a man sized wall, each with a crossbow aperture.  So, if attacking the wall, you kept having to fight past walls, even though one was already atop 'the wall'  I'd seen such things on documentaries before, but I hadn't realised how steep it was.

Irish people.  Every other European thought we were saying 'Peace'

Good conversation as we went, James, the Cork lad I mentioned before, Susie, the other Irish girl on the bus, and Claire.  Also Irish.  Living in Melbourne, and there to stay. Very enjoyable trip.  Albeit windy towards the end where the wall, the quality of which was worsening  as we went on, degraded still further, and suddenly, beyond our final 'Tower 22' picked up a carpet of snow which til now had only stuck to the dried up river beds below.

Entrepreneurial Chinamen ambushed us atop some of the higher towers, selling beer, t-shirts and post cards.  I didn't buy anything but admired their resolve.  And Laughed, quite free and loudly.

Me on the wall

snow on the wall

The stair case down from the wall was itself a feat - paved stairs of a modern date twisting down from the wall to possibly the ugliest museum I've ever seen - brickwork painted onto its grey sides.  Also, what appeared to be an abandoned conference center, freezing, about the museum and the center not a soul - til Claire and Susie started playing house behind the cafe counter and from nowhere a Chinese woman materialised, a slightly harassed looking Chinese woman.  

It took her 15 minutes to get me half a cup of coffee, dubious tasting - faintly tuna esque - and more expensive then a latte in London.  Then back, merry Irish folk conversing with my German dorm mates at the back of the bus, reciting prayers in Irish, imitating the priest from my Grandmother's church in Tahilla. Good fun.

Arranged to meet them for dinner later, but first had to get my bag to Left Luggage in the brightly lit Beijing Rail Station."

All aboard

Aboard the teeny tiny taxi

"Got my bag from the hostel and walked down to a large intersection dragging my bag and wearing my brand new Wooly Chinese hat, to flag down a taxi.  Took a while - eventually one pulled up, I put my bag in the boot, then, opening up the map in my lonely planet guide, pointed to my desired destination, the train station, which was marked in English as well as Mandarin script.  The driver looked puzzled, kept pointing his long fingernail while looking at me and muttering in disbelief, eventually he shook his head and refused.  So I had to struggle my bag back out of the boot.  And off he drove.  Silly me for presuming a taxi would bring me to a cities central train station!

 Eventually a rickshaw man picked me up in an unsteady looking rig, a motorcycle with what looked like a small portakabin nailed to the back seat.  For the entirety of the strange cramped trip I was afraid the thing would keel over from the weight of my big old bag, but it didn't,  the man seemed to take the longest route possible to the train station, but eventually, having circumnavigated central Beijing about half a dozen times, I was there."

My first view of the station

The next time I had time to right about this particular day, I had already passed into Russia.

I'll pick up the narrative there, bring us up to the train itself before I finish this entry.

"Where last I left off I had arrived for the first time at Beijing Railway station.  It stood before me, massive, clean, quite pretty, threatening on one blow to demolish all negative feelings I had regarding Beijing.  But of course, security at the entrances were tightly controlled.  We passengers were funneled through causeways past ticket booths and then into another enclosure where rails siphoned off the crowd through various different entrances.

Inside, beyond the rails, were, of course, x-ray machines through which your bags passed, while you passed through heavy plastic drapes, collected your bag and finally found yourself in the busy main concourse.  2 escalators stood at either side of an unmanned information office, various shops bounded the space selling the usual travel supplies, noodles, plastic cups, etc..  I headed in and to the right passing yet another security checkpoint.  I said Ni hao to the security guard as I passed (she didn't feel the need to pat me down) and we both giggled foolishly at each other.

I found Left Luggage in a large secondary concourse full of people sitting milling and queuing.  Left luggage was a large wall of lockers on the right.

my last meal in Beijing

 The woman in charge didn't know what to make of me.  She kept talking to me in Mandarin and I kept shrugging.  I gave her my train ticket in an attempt to explain that I wouldn't be needing the locker for very long.  She looked at it like she'd never seen such a thing before, then passed it around our audience of waiting commuters.  Much general laughter.  

Eventually, after some extended farce, a man stepped up who understood English, as I'd surmised, the only issue was whether or not I'd be back within 24 hours - it was all very cheerfully settled.

 Then it was out to wander outside.  James was to text me with out dining locale, and hadn't done so as yet.  It was quite late when he'd settled on a place, and after some confusion as to where it was (turned out it was virtually next door to my hostel) I race off, assuming I'd be late, but was in fact first to arrive.  

 It was a restaurant called savour coree, South Korean with a manager who'd obviously spent time in London judging by his Landan accent.  The Germans and the Italian girl from my dorm arrived but the Irish girls had gone to a different savour coree 10 minutes down the road, so James and his American mates joined them there but of course, needing to catch a train to Moscow, I had already ordered so couldn't join them.  Still, it was an excellent meal and I swung by to say Goodbye to them as I headed back to the central station, at a run. 

Bought a plastic bottle and retrieved my luggage, the lady at left luggage indicated I should head up, so upstairs I went.  Here, in what looked like a mall, its ceilings decorated with extravagant paintings, I found the train boarding gates, a long corridor with signs every 10 metres or so on either side - after some confusion, and genuine worry that I'd miss my train, I found mine.

My 'Gate'

I was quite put off.  Quite scared.  It looked like a  pretty rough crowd in the queue ahead of me.  I recalled once again that this was a working train, particularly at this time of year.  But then Petra appeared.  She'd spied me at the bank link earlier on in the station and had rejoiced at the prospect of another European onboard.  Shes a Czech pianist on her way home after traveling south east Asia, and appeared as overjoyed to see me as I was to see her.  And when the time came we headed through the gates together.

Right before boarding

 
Right into a scene from a film.

- wide platform, 2 endless trains at either side, bluish purple light, steam accenting the noirish mood.  Red and white spotlights catching the smoke, and smudging the scene into a water colour.  

We were in carriages at either end of the train (still are) so we split up - my carriage attendent joked about my hat then moved me up to a carriage other then the one specified in my ticket.  For a moment I thought it was first class. It wasn't.  

Carriage No.1"

Pictures never do a thing Justice. Thats my train, on the right

Finally aboard.

Will take up the tale from boarding.