T'is Forbidden

So we had arrived in Beijing and already seen one of the most famous things in the capital, if not in China - Tiananmen Square. It was time to see another, the Forbidden City, which thankfully for us was not too far away from our hotel. But before that we had a couple of other things to sort out. Number one on the list was to purchase the train tickets to Xi’An from Beijing, another overnighter. We also wanted to see Chairman Mao lying in state, but this would be shut at midday so we would need to get a move on.

There was a rail ticket office near to the hotel, but they had no hard sleeper beds left (cheaper, but with 6 people instead of 4) so we would have to take a little trip to the main train station or try and get to Beijing West, where the train leaves from. But before that we wanted to go to the Memorial Hall to see Chairman Mao. We have got used to security checks whilst staying in Beijing and this was no different. No bags allowed, so we would have to leave them in lockers over the road and get a ticket, etc, etc. We decided that we would do it another day, without our bags to save the complications. So we hopped on the metro and made it out to the train station.

Our local roads

There is usually one ticket booth that states it is English-speaking, but we couldn’t see one out of the 20 or so booths that had many, many people queuing at each one. We joined a queue that had some other Westerners in it and by sheer luck it was indeed the English-speaking line. We managed to get tickets sorted, but it seemed like all the hard sleeper tickets had gone so we would have to pay for the more expensive soft sleepers. No matter, it would be a little luxury in our journey down to Xi’An.

After lunch we headed to the Forbidden Palace. It was reasonably cheap to get into, but as soon as we did we were set upon by people asking us if we needed a guide. Naturally we batted them away with gusto and marched on under the arched entrance. Inside it was pretty majestic. But it was also pretty damned chilly! Make that “ridiculously chilly” as there was a howling wind that screamed through the complex. We wandered round the place and were impressed (largely) with the buildings and history of the place.

A rather chilly Forbidden City

We may have experienced a slight lack of enthusiasm for some things, however, as we have been travelling for over 5 months now and have seen a lot of spectacular things, so it is inevitable that we experience an underwhelmed feeling to some things. It may also have been that James was struggling with the cold, but I was pretty toasty with my layers, hat and two hoods. It was much bigger than I initially thought and we spent a good couple of hours searching out all the small areas with interesting little information boards and wishing ponds.

Inside the Forbidden City

Once we were done with the Forbidden City we made it back to the hotel and had received an email from the girl on the train, Haven. She was free that night to meet up and experience some “bars” as she hadn’t done so before. We were tired, but still keen to venture out into Beijing and see what the bars would offer us, especially having missed out in Shanghai and Hong Kong. To be honest though, my spidey senses were still tingling a little bit – not just from the scammers in Shanghai, but also the girl on the train from Hanoi to Nanning, who never replied to our attempts to get in touch (the one who had a hotel that we could leave our bags in if we wanted to go an explore…). Was she a genuinely nice girl who just wanted to have some company with two English gents who were visiting for a few days? Or was there a bar/hotel scam lurking round the corner…?

We sampled the delights of the hotel restaurant once again that night, as we were going to be pushed for time otherwise, and once again we were joined at our table by the cats that seemed to have free reign of the place. There was a bunch on Finnish lads on the table next to us who were playing cards and trying to determine which was the best club to go out to in Beijing. I wondered if we would be bumping into these lads later on in the evening…

James with resident cat, before it went for his pork

We met Haven at one of the metro stations a few stops down from our own and it was great to see her again, still with that massive smile on her face and the aura of enthusiasm surrounding her. None of us knew exactly where to go (which was a good sign as we had read that many of the “bar scams” involve going to a specific bar, much like the tea scam, as the owners are in on it) but James had done a little research on the right area to head to so we set off in the cold and blustery Beijing night.

Where to now then, James???

We arrived at a bar that seemed quite good from Wikitravel, apparently, but it seemed a bit loud inside and the beers were a bit too pricey for our liking. The problem with a loud bar is that Haven would have trouble understanding us and we might have trouble explaining things, so we were on the lookout for a nice quiet lounge bar or something. We ended up in a place called Youth Club (I think!) as it ticked all the boxes. We grabbed three beers (Haven was to join us in a Tsingtao beer) and got settled in an upstairs “box” that looked out over the rest of the floor below. As we were getting comfortable we were shifted out of there as to sit there we would have to be spending over 200 RMB, and that certainly wasn’t going to happen! So we left the VIP box and grabbed a table on the ground floor and got chatting. Well, we tried; each table had a cup with a set of dice in and the other patrons seemed intent on rattling the dice as hard as they possibly could before chucking them out onto the table.

It was quiet, but very dark in there!

We had a great time with Haven in the bar, but as soon as the time hit 10:00pm they cranked up the music which meant that we couldn’t really hear each other. Our last train back was just before 11:00pm so we tried to find another bar that was nearby. We couldn’t find one that was suitable so we called it a night and set off back to the metro station.

It turned out that the people she was staying with at the university had neglected to tell her that they close the doors at 11:00pm so she would get locked out if she made her way back to the university. That left her with an option of finding a hotel nearby , or near ours, or coming to ours to either get a separate room for herself or to sleep one of the two spare twin beds that we had. Hotels often don’t let you bring guests in so we weren’t sure how it would go down, but they were more than happy to take her money and chuck her in our room with us.

A room at the Leo Courtyard you say?

It needed a bit of a tidy as we had just dumped everything out of our bags on the first night but we cleaned up, apologised for the cleanliness of the bathroom (not our fault) and sat down to continue our discussions. Alarm bells were still ringing in my head when she said that she wouldn’t be able to stay at the university as in my head I imagined that she could be trying to get back to our hotel and then try and rob us at knife-point or something! Very much implausible but after Shanghai by spidey senses have been on red alert, and probably over-analysing every little situation.

As the clock neared 12:30am we were all flagging a bit so we made sure Haven was comfortable in her room and we settled down in ours. It had been a strange night, but much fun too. Now we just had to make it through the night and check to see if our luggage would still be at the end of the bed in the morning…