AMAZING CHINA
I Fell In Love With My Beijing Tour Guide
Sometimes blind faith leads to the most amazing adventures
A few years back, on a rediscover-myself trip of self-growth, while diving in Indonesia, I met this girl.
She wasn’t just any girl — she was a very smart girl, and kinda pretty.
After some days together on the same boat diving, we came to know each other pretty well.
But as with all holidays, this trip came to an end and she flew off into the sunset, back to Jakarta for work, and I continued on with my journey of self-discovery — I was one third of my way on a trip around the world.
Back on my own, a few days later, I received an email — “I am planning a trip up to Beijing to visit friends for a few days — would you like to join me?”
Now I knew Alli had lived in China for a number of years and that she spoke fluent Mandarin. She was offering to share some of her adopted city with me. I had never had that kind of opportunity, and she seemed kinda fun, so I said sure, why not.
I cancelled my onward ticket to India and booked a flight to Beijing. I was committed!
Arriving on time at the airport in Beijing, and through immigration, I found the coffee shop we agreed to meet at — but no Alli. China being the way it was at the time, I had no way to get in touch with her.
At this point I realized that we had made no contingency plans. This was gonna work on blind faith — or it wasn’t.
I waited for an hour, then into a second. My worst fears realized. I had been stood up, in China, knowing only two words of Mandarin (ni-hao — hello).
After some despair, I became pragmatic. I found a wi-fi connection on my phone and slowly started a search for a night at a hotel.
And then there she was.
Seemingly still in her dance-club clothes from the night before. Apologies all around — she had a late night with friends and slept through her alarm.
She had a plan going forward — a detailed one. With lots to do over the next 48 hours and no more time to waste, we were out the door and in a taxi.
Once we hit the streets of Beijing, sleep seemed to become an unnecessary annoyance.
What a city, and what a way to see it, with an expat who speaks fluent Mandarin and knows all the super cool spots and all the little hidden gems.
The best way to get around Beijing is of course by bike.
A stop at Tiananmen Square…
And on to the Forbidden City…
The Forbidden City is an amazing maze of temples inside temples, pagodas, halls, rooms, and squares. The scale of it all is what is most impressive.
Each twenty-five-foot high wall of the square complex is at least a kilometre long and there is a large moat surrounding the entire city.
Once inside, you can wander from pagoda to pagoda as you make your way slowly toward the centre of the complex.
Each pagoda has its own purpose, such as the “Do Nothing” pagoda, the “Where Decisions Are Made” pagoda, and the very important “Where the Emperor Puts On His Clothes” pagoda.
Once through the pagodas, you arrive at the Emperor’s private residence and private garden, which is quite beautiful, and apparently was quiet back then — not like the day we were there as it was full.
After the Forbidden City, the next big attraction was the biggest of them all, the Great Wall.
Alli, as my official tour guide knew the best place to go to see the wall, and it is not near the normal place that tourists go. To get to this lesser-known section of the Great Wall, it was a two-hour drive north of Beijing, to a quiet little village called Huanghua (this means “yellow flower”, although we didn’t see any yellow flowers, only purple ones).
My first view of the Great Wall, and I was taken — it is amazing.
It was a much bigger (and thicker) structure than I had envisioned in my mind. I mean, it’s thousands of kilometers long — surely the thickness had to be taken into consideration when procuring materials to build it. It’s not like the Mongols had cannons back then. But I digress.
Back to our experience — now there are two positions regarding access to the Great Wall:
- The position of the national government is “stay off the wall”.
- The position of the local villages is “pay us a few yuan, use our ladder, we’ve got your back”.
This makes the access point very discreet, and very rickety.
Once we were up onto the wall, we could hike for miles and miles in either direction, taking in the increasingly spectacular viewpoints. It is not flat, not at all, nowhere near.
We followed the Great Wall down a steep section to a reservoir and then back up the other side. Stunning views from both sides.
On this particular day, we had the wall almost to ourselves. In this area, the wall has been restored in some sections and left as-is in others. The unrestored sections are rugged, giving them an ancient and unexplored feel.
Some of the climbs are pretty steep, going from a cobblestone grade and then into rock-block stairs after a certain grade. I would not want to be hiking this in wet weather, you could slip right off the sucker.
And as you can see, there is literally no one there. We decided to break the day into two hikes, one on the restored section of the wall to get a feel for the “original” condition, and then over to the unrestored section of the wall for a more rugged hiking experience.
Both were terrific.
At one point, I remembered that my sister Sarah had always wanted to see the Great Wall of China, so I called her from the top of our viewpoint just to rub it in a little.
Information used to be passed down the wall by smoke signals, a process that would take a few days. I wonder how long it would take to get a smoke signal to Canada?
I am also happy to report that no Mongols were sighted, China is still safe. Once we determined this, we could let down our guard and relax a little on the drive back to Beijing.
No trip to Beijing is complete without sampling the food.
We ran the gamut of Chinese cuisine, from Sichuan to Xinjiang, from Chongqing Hot Pot to Dim Sum to Peking Duck. So diverse, so tasty, so much fun to eat.
And on the last night, I was taken to the secret rooftop bar to have one final sunset view over the city.
It was amazing to see a city like Beijing through the eyes of someone who knows it so well and is so kind to share it. She is also easy on the eyes, definitely an added bonus.
I am so glad that I had the freedom and the spirit back then to hop on the plane to Beijing — and that I was patient and understanding when I first arrived.
If I hadn’t been, this whole amazing adventure would never have happened.
And I wouldn’t have ended up marrying this smart, pretty lady.
And we wouldn’t have a daughter, born in Beijing, with the middle name Jyn — “golden” in Mandarin— which she truly is, hair colour and all.
Now that adventure is an entirely different story.
Thank you for reading.