Lee and Clare, The road home

Mongolia to Beijing via The Great Wall

28^th October 2003

On our last night in Mongolia we went out to a couple of night-clubs with a couple of dudes from our hostel (very interesting guys. One who'd done VSO in Mongolia for 2 years and is now working for the UN Development fund and the other who was cycling around the world with a budget of about $100US a month).

We bought vodka by the bottle and head banged with all the young'uns on the dance floor and had a hysterical time. We got the cheapest vodka on the menu ($5US a bottle), but should've learnt from Turkish and Egyptian experiences that cheap Vodka ain't the best for bellies (or should we say Wodka/Votka).

Moved to a night-club that ended up having a floor show that included an electrical guitar player, a couple of singers and a stripper, she was pretty good on that pole! Good night, bummer we had to get up at 6.30 for our train on to China.

We have arrived in Beijing safely, thought you'd like to know. We shared a compartment on the train with two Mongolian snorers who will be competing in the Olympics in snoring in Beijing in 2008. (We weren't laughing at the time though! Would like to have had a decibel reader as we don't think it would be possible for snoring to be any louder!)

Very interesting couple to talk to though, as the lady could speak perfect English and a lot of their sentences started with "before democracy....". I don't think they like the state of Mongolia since democracy came in with lots of people losing jobs, becoming alcoholics, children on streets etc. Can see their point.

The excitement about seeing the Great Wall was all too much and Lee had to leave something on the tracks at one of the stations as he got stuck in the toilet when the train stopped for 20 minutes and had to flush it. We were surprised that the train didn't derail.

The anticipation for the Great Wall was awesome as our Mongolian snoring team told us when we went into a tunnel that we'd be able to see the Great Wall when we came out. It was a looong tunnel but we stood staring out the black windows for all of it getting more and more excited. Sure enough there it was when we came out of the tunnel! It was going up a steep hill and along a ridge of mountains and very very steep in places. We could see it on and off out of the window for a good half an hour and we probably took far too many photos that won't come out! The train even stopped at a particularly good spot so we could get out and take some photos of the wall on both sides of the track. Cool!

We feel like we've gone back in time a bit here as when we looked out of the window when we got up this morning there were leaves on the trees again and lots of green. Weird. We have left winter and gone back to autumn. Might be able to put the hat and gloves away - hopefully!

We haven't seen too much of Beijing yet, but so far it is nothing like we expected. We thought it would be a bit like Bangkok, a bit dirty and smelly and lots of people and cars. But it's the opposite. It is sooo clean. there is not even any chewing gum on the pavements and all the hedges and grass are manicured perfectly. We managed to get a room in a hostel right in the centre of town for $15US a night for both of us. We haven't done anything touristy yet, but we're all set to go see the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square tomorrow. We are so excited to be here, already getting used to chop sticks, eating our first Chinese meal in a shopping mall. Nice to have chicken and vegetables again after two weeks of fatty mutton and potatoes!

We'll be catching a local bus to the Great Wall in a couple of days - we've seen it but we gotta walk on it of course! Probably stay in Beijing for about 5 days before we set off again. Next stop probably Xian to see the Teracotta Warriors (and mum, I wish you could see them with us too!!).

Must head off to bed and catch up on some non snore ruined sleep!!