Day 12 - Blogabond

Up at seven, it was no problem getting a cab -- two were waiting right in front of the hotel. The real problem came in explaining where I wanted to go. It was printed on the ticket but rather smudged and the hotel wasn't listed on any map. All I knew was that it was near the Friendship Store. That was important since the cab driver turned the other way on Chang An. When I told him to turn around he finally realized where we were going. The hotel wasn't on the maps because it was obviously very new -- chrome and glass type decor. I was early so I sat in the coffee shop and had a real cup of coffee (no Nescafe!) and read "China Daily," the English language newspaper and propaganda sheet.

Finally it was eight a.m. and time to board the bus. We made two stops, the first to pick up an overly made-up woman apparently from Hong Kong at the Sheraton Great Wall. The hotel looked quite nice but was rather far out of town. (I read somewhere that they have shuttle buses but the distance still seems like a problem tot me). The second stop was to change buses and consolidate with another load from (apparently) the Holiday Inn (REALLY far out of town).

The ride to the Ming Tombs was about an hour long. I sat next to an American, a man about forty years old, who ran an American school in Malaysia. For the summer break he had taken the train from Belgium through Poland, Russia and China. He was very good looking and intelligent, but married as well, C'est la vie.

Our first stop was on the road leading to the tombs, which is lined with stone sculptures of animals and then men. We stayed there for 1/2 an hour, not quite long enough to walk back to the gate where, according to our guide, the biggest stone turtle in China is housed.

We then continued on to the tombs. While the grounds were pleasant enough, the actual tombs were just as boring as the guidebook predicted. You walk down flights and flights of stairs to see absolutely nothing. Added to this was our tour guide -- an obnoxious man who repeated everything several times but was still unintelligible. Furthermore, he was into audience participation and kept trying to get us to answer questions ("So does anybody know what the emperor's favorite number was? Anybody? The emperor's favorite number? Do you know?") God, he was awful.

After an hour we got back on the bus. A half-hour later we stopped for lunch. Where we stopped was a small townhouse only attraction was obviously this tourist restaurant -- it was exactly like the place you stop to eat on the tour from Moscow to Zagorsk. The meal was pretty dull except for Paul, an adorable five year old (?) from Hong Kong traveling with his "mum" -- they were English and her husband (not on the trip) worked for Shell.

written by

shoshtrvls on August 12, 1987 from Beijing, China

from the travel blog: Around the World (1987)

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