Beijing - an easy Tourist life!

Beijing - we loved Beijing! The city ıs home to 18millıon people and is the same size as Belgium! People were very friendly and calm. Everyone cycles or uses electric mopeds and the bikes rule the traffic - with red lights seemingly optional to pedestrians and cyclists, which took a bit of getting used to. Yes, Motorists toot their horns, which is blissfully ignored by all 2-wheelers!

Wandering around the streets we encountered quite a few strict rules though, enforced by eager police men and women and signposted by these signs, see below. So better not think of flying a kite or making a bondfire in Beijing!

We enjoyed strolling through the "Hutongs" - Sidestreets of the city.

And then we dived into the mad tourist stream at the forbidden city, one of six world heritage sites in the city and a major attraction.

Rather then sun cream the Chinese make use of umbrellas in rain and sun.

And it was full of people, a 15mın walk turned ınto 2hours weaving around umbrellas. But all in a chılled out atmosphere. Below ıs the " Gate of Surpreme Harmony" one of the palace buildings of the forbidden city. It's an impressive array of palaces built mainly during the Ming Dynasty 600 years ago and since then home to 24 emperors.

We relaxed in a side street poetry cafe afterwards and made a more or less artistic contribution to the guestbook.

We also enjoyed the food - Beijing is all about food with something like 60 000 restaurants. Not to forget the famous "Peking Duck" which was advertised everywhere.

Our hotel (Kıng's Joy Hotel) was great! Big, right in the centre, clean and good breakfast.

We spent many hours exploring the city on our bicycles...also in search for a bike shop...

We had almost given up - all bike repair stands were more geared towards the typical get-around-the city-bike and had not the type of wheel we needed to fix Tim's bike. But then on Sunday night at 8pm we stumbled across a proper mountainbike shop - complete coincidence and luck (apparently it's the only one it's kind in the whole city). The guys in there were very friendly and built Tim a new wheel right there and then, despite it was passed their closing time! How cool is that!

We met Satoshi in the shop, a Japanese guy who lives in Beijing and is a keen Mountainbiker. He helped us with vital! translation - Thank you again!

One evening we enjoyed an interestimg couple of hours watching a show about the story of kungfu in the Red theatre.

And then there was the great wall! We used the offered tour by our hotel and joıned a tour bus to Mutıanyu one of the visitable sectıons 90km NorthEast of Beijing. We took the cable car up...

...and walked along the wall turning Tim into a real man - as in China that's what it takes - touchıng the great wall!Done!

The steps were very steep ın places.

Best about this section of the wall is that there is the option of a toboggan ride to the bottom - great fun!

On our last day, 25th August we packed up and rode to the Airport.

Across the desert - UB to Beijing

Train No 24 from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing left at 7am on 20th August.

We again were lucky with Chinese conductors who with no fuss loaded our bikes onto the train at the end of the carriage - no extra charge (we have heard all sorts of storıies of people not being let on the train or having to pay extra for the bikes)

This time we had a nice Mongolian restaurant to spend our last Mongolian money - yamm!

And so we left the skyline of the capital cıty behind and rolled South.

Like in the TransMongolian from Moscow each cariage has a coal fired water urn so we had a constant supply of piping hot water - nice!

The desert was one big open shrubby nothingness...

...with a cracking sunset, sandy settlements and gers in the middle of nowhere...

The border crossing - Mongolia/China took quite long. First the controls and then the wheels had to be changed as the wheel gauges in the two countries are different. The entire train was driven into a big hall late at night. Then massive hydraulic jacks lifted the carriages - with us in it - and the old bogies were rolled out from underneath us and replaced with new Chinese ones. All in all we spent 7hours with no toilet -not allowed during border crossing - but it was very interesting.

Beijıng greeted us with rain and a colourful array of umbrellas. We arrived midday and were immediately taken by the place - great for cycling!

Across the desert, through the forbidden city and straight to the beach!

We landed in Ataturk Airport yesterday and rather then cycliıng into Istanbul we headed straight for the coast and to the beach. Well, "straight" is not quite right - navigation has been challenging with roads definitely not set up for cyclist - well nor for motorists either - the road signs are very sporadic - but we got here: Silivri campsite at the beach - lovely. It's rather hot here and we have been in the sea lots already and are gorging on fruit. Tonight we are having dinner with a campervan couple from Essex (the only other foreign tourists on our campsite).

Beijing was fantatstic and we had brilliant four days includıng the forbidden city, the great wall and a kungfu show. Unfortunately the blog was censored in China so more on our time there later.

Pics and further update to follow - over and out.