We get to Beijing at 6 am and quickly check into our rooms before spending the morning and afternoon checking out Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. In the evening we are in absolute awe as we are entertained with a Chinese Acrobatics show performed by the Chinese national team. From one amazing act to the next, we watch the team demonstrating awesome feats surprising us with their agility, strength and flexibility.
The next day, we wake up bright and early and make the 2 hour drive to witness the highlight of the China portion of our trip, the Great Wall of China. It is a beautiful spring day as we walk the wall from the 10th to 23rd tower before walking back. There are parts of the climb that are extremely steep but the sight of the Great Wall snaking along the beautiful backdrop of mountains is a sight to behold. The history of the wall is fascinating. Unlike what people think, you cannot see the wall from space and there isn’t just one great wall, but a series of 4 walls that were built by different dynasties over the span of over a thousand years.
We have a farewell dinner of Peking duck that evening with our tour group, all who have been a great bunch to hang out with for the course of 16 days.
The next three nights are spent with Vic’s cousin and hubby, Virginia and Kelvin, who go the full 9 yards in making us feel at home in Beijing. Among many other places, they take us to Ming Tombs, Suniten, a market street where they sell funky food items (can’t remember the name) and introduce us to the best meals we’ve had in China, including a Michelen rated restaurant in the Hutong. Thank you Virginia and Kelvin for all of your hospitality!
On our seventh morning in Beijing, we get up at 5 am and head to the Beijing Railway Station to catch the Trans Mongolian Express en route to Ulaan Baatar. The train is extremely comfortable and remarkably clean as we get into our 4 person train compartment. At midnight, we enter Mongolia, and custom officials come onto our train and take away our custom forms and passports. We then disembark the train for a stop at the supermarket and then wait for 3 hours as they change the wheels on our train as the train tracks in Mongolia and Russia are different from the tracks in China.
When we arrive at Ulaan Baatar, we meet our wonderful Australian tour companions and are greeted by our Mongolian tour guide who takes us to visit a giant steel statue of Chinggis (Gengis) Khan before taking us 70 km out into the countryside for a 2 night stay in a traditional Mongolian ger. The ger is a large circular tent that is widely used by Mongolians and can easily be dismantled and moved from location to location. Mongolians has a strong nomadic culture as a result of severe weather fluctuations where temperatures go as high as 50 degrees Celsius in the summer and minus 50 degrees Celsius in the winter. In order to survive, the people migrate with the animals so that they can avoid the massive swings in temperature in certain regions. Today, there are many people who live in the cities but 30% of the population still live as nomads.
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| Inside the Ger |
Our huge ger is heated by a small furnace heated by coal and firewood which is replenished every couple of hours. We spend the next morning riding Mongolian horses, which are a lot smaller than horses back at home and spend the afternoon visiting the ger of a local couple.
We then spend 2 days sightseeing in the capital city of Mongolia, Ulaan Baatar, before boarding our next train for the onwards journey to Siberia!
