I love Beijing, but those Peking knees...

No more trains (for a while)....theTrans-Mongolian express has reached its final destination: Beijing!

Beijing has everything you could wish for: culture, delicious food, art, hip bars, bikes, cheap massages, fashion, good shopping (silk market), excellent subway system and the Great Wall

A list of favourites and must do's:

Food

- Home cooked food at Alice's tea house
- Try the 2 yen Chinese take on egg on a roll
- Have a 5 yen dinner in one of the tiny restaurants in the hutongs
- Try a scorpion, starfish or just some dumplings at the snackmarket (bargain!!)















Drinks

- Visit Mao Mao Thong Hong (Banchang hutong) for great cocktails and homemade vodka
- Hike from bar to bar in one of the hutongs
- Have a beer in one of the many rooftop bars on Nanluogu Xiang
- Try some tea during one of Alice's tea ceremonies









Culture

- Great Wall!
- Forbidden city (it is huge!)
- Acrobat and/or Kung Fu show










People watching

- Wander around in one of the many hutongs (bring your playing cards, they like games)
- Relax in the park around the Temple of Heaven...a playground for the elderly!
- For the hipsters: 798 Art District...tons of galleries in a former factory. Great scene, do not miss 798 photography!
















Even though the subway system is great (mr Bloomberg, please pay a visit) and taxis are cheap....rent a bike! It is the best way to get around in this city which has the size of Belgium! Ignore this advice and you will end up with Peking knees....do not worry though, massages are cheap...and good!








Last tip for the ladies: always carry toilet paper in your bra...comes in handy when visiting the public restrooms...

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Location:Beijing, China

Bogie Woogie - final destination Beijing

Upgraded to a soft sleeper!!! Big and sift beds for the final part of the journey...and scored Chocolate Pies, sweet, but favourite breakfast on the Trans-Siberian. Could this day be any better?! Maybe.... the train carriage is Chinese, as are its (this time male) attendants....meaning, a lot of dirty sounds and spitting, despite the "no spitting" sign. Also, the guys try to keep bathroom 1 out of 2 for themselves ( "is broken...") This worked out well though, after buying from their secret beer stash, got private access to their bathroom, which was much cleaner than the other one after the whining French, who are sharing our carriage once again, had used it (for half an hour each...)

The Chinese dining car was not a success either, though good practice for bargaining. Admitted, the dishes were better than the ones in the Russian carriage but 90 dollars seemed a bit overpriced. After tough negotiations, the price came down to 12. Never managed to get approval for playing cards though....bummer.

This time two days and one night on the train and....a border crossing. Everyone is still a bit traumatized from the last one and it gets very quiet when we approach the border late in the afternoon. You sort of want to get drunk, but knowing the toilets will be closed for 7 hours, this does not seem a good idea. It may have been the lower outside temperature, but the whole immigration and customs process seems much smoother and faster than last time. The French do not seem to think so, they must "faire un pipi" and are shouting at the train attendants, trying to make them open the bathroom. They shout back in Chinese, but when one of the French guys gets violent, they hesitantly open one of the bathrooms...the other one is still "broken"...

Made it to China!!

Then it is time for the long expected "bogie woogie"....the boogies of each carriage must be replaced by smaller once due to the difference size of the tracks. It is fun to watch: the train gets lifted, tiny Chinese railworkers with bamboo hats unscrew the bogies, move them away and new ones appearing from out of nowhere are put on. After 2 hours, a little after midnight, we are heading for Beijing! Expected arrival time 2 pm Beijing time (finally may forget about Moscow time, pfew)!

First gonna faire une pipi now....

















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Location:Trans-Mongolian express from Ulan Baatar, Mongolia to Beijing, China

Gers, Genghis and horse riding

Finally, in the (right) bus heading for a ger camp!

There could be no bigger contrast between the city and the countryside. The beautiful grasslands are dotted with gers, the homes of nomads (60% of the population) who still travel by horse, foot or sometimes yak and once in a while you can spot a galopping horse.

Despite the trail of blood and destruction that he left, Chinggis (or Genghis) Khaan is regarded a national hero in Mongolia. It's face appears on stamps, beer, vodka, hotels, bands and....an enormous statue has been erected in its honour in the middle of nowhere. Quite a surprising sight! When the bus makes a stop at a local supermarket to stock up on supplies, there is a debate as to whether we should buy wine, beer or vodka. When someone posed the question: "What would Ghengis do?", we ended up with lots of beer....and milky ways (to be eaten without removing the wrapper)....

Obviously, one must explore Mongolia by horse! Slightly wobbly and a bit discouraged by the horror stories (tourists that broke bodyparts ranging from toes to an arm to two legs), the group mounts their horses. The Mongolian guides look at us mockingly like Dutch people look at tourists on a bike...It is a lot of fun though. After some practice, we head for the steeper hills and start to actually enjoy the pretty scenery.

After a delicious meal, we wash away the fermented yakmilk (for the Dutch: it tastes like karnemelk) with vodka and sleep like babies in the very cosy gers. Manage to get up at 6 am to hike up to a meditation retreat and read a book far up in the hills...good start of the day. Life is good in this part of Mongolia!



























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Location:Steppe in middle of nowhere (or actually Terelj), Mongolia

UB

Keeping with the nomadic lifestyle of the Mongols, the capital of Mongolia was moved frequently to various locations along the various rivers until it was finally established in its present location in 1778 and named Ulan Baatar, UB for the insiders, in 1924. Honest opinion, it is time to move the city again. Hardly seen such a messy, chaotic, ugly city...nothing like the Mongolia you see on National Geographic. Good to have escaped the train from hell though and order some snert in Cafe Amsterdam....is this really Mongolia??

The Soviets contributed to the city's beauty by destroying almost all monasteries and temples, replacing them by uniform apartment blocks and cavernous government buildings....pretty...

Lots of Mongols moved into the city recently and there is construction everywhere. Once completed, it seems like the city will double in size.

Had some issues taking a local bus to the palace of Boghd Khan (Mongolia's eight living Buddha and king), one of thr two main, or actually only, sights in UB together with the Gandan Khid monastery. Apparently, a map on the side of the bus with all (its, would make sense right) stops and a picture of the palace next to the last stop does not mean the bus is going there. Instead, it may be a bus to a nature reserve 2.5 hours away which you only figure out once the city has faded away and you are suddenly surrounded by beautiful grasslands, gers (traditional Mongolian tents), horses and nomads....ooops. What to do? Our American fellow passenger went for the panick attack ( are you F*CKING kiddin me....are we gonna be on this bus for 2.5 hours??)...not the best way to go. Instead, hopped off at gasstation in middle of nowhere and fairly quickly stopped a bus that went back to the city....nice little adventure, very welcome in the slightly boring UB.

Time to leave UB and head to the real Mongolia...


























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Location:Ulan Baatar, Mongolia

Mongolian tradition - a free interpretation

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Location:UB, Mongolia - Tugmen Ekh, traditional Mongolian music and dance and various monasteries