Travel to Beijing
- Belgian cafe : there is a cafe in Beijing that is specialized in Belgian beers that I sadly enough only heard about after I had left Beijing. It must be the ideal place for long time traveling Belgians like me to taste the sweet tastes of honey from home.- Beijing Donghuamen market : located in a side street to the main shopping street Wangfujing in the centre of Beijing. This evening market (18:00 - 21:00 ) is full of food stalls selling delicious Chinese dishes. The street food on offer is very diverse, you find snake, scorpions, grasshoppers and maggots. Tasty, fun atmosphere and big choice, the perfect place for a evening meal.
- Internet cafes in Beijing : because of a fire in June 2002 were 2000 internet cafes closed in Beijing. It is not quite difficult to find a cheap internet cafe. The JingHua hotel has 5 computers and charges 10 Yuan per hour of surfing on the internet.
- Beijing opera : you can watch this old Chinese theater and acrobatic style in the Zheng-Yi temple theater. This is the oldest wood opera of Beijing,situated in one of the hutongs near the forbidden city. The interior is beautiful but gets slightly overshadowed by the hordes of stalls with Chinese kitsch that almost cover the space. The stalls also leave their lights on during the shows witch is disturbing. The audience is purely western tourists. The Chinese theater show is short (1 hour) and ends with some acrobatics. The ticket price is 80 Yuan for students (they did not ask to see my student card) and 150 Yuan for a non concessions ticket. The entrance price includes tea and some Chinese nuts and snacks. I find the price a bit high, certainly for non students but I think that it's possible to get a reduction of the price if you ask.
- Hutong houses in Beijing : the area around the Zheng-Yi opera is nice to cycle around in and has a few good eating stalls with Chinese dishes.
- Budget hotels : the JingHua hotel is a popular budget hotel in Beijing with
* complete service : internet cafe, 24/24 Western pub bar, garden with pool, restaurant, tourist info, washing machine, exchange office, travel agency and flight booking office.
* The 6- bed dorms: with air conditioning are great, big, clean and brand new. 35 Yuan per bed is a very good price for budget accommodation in Beijing.
* The 11 bed -and 21 bed dorms : are on the other hand very dirty and unattractive. Also the dark old 4 bed dorms in the cellar without windows are for the 5 Yuan that you save really not worth it.
* If you have to sleep one night in the cellar because the 6 bed dorms are full, try then as early as possible the next day to change.
- Getting or exchanging cash: in Beijing there are lots of cash machines that take as well Cirrus as VISA cards.
- taxi : taxis in Beijing are cheap, make sure that you choose a cheap taxi that charges 1.2 Yuan per kilometre since the more luxurious the taxi is the higher the charge per kilometre. The price is indicated on the taxi window.
- Visiting the Chinese wall : there are different possibilities of visiting the Chinese wall from Beijing. In the summer the air around the wall is often misty because of the high humidity.
* The nicest way of seeing the wall in my opinion must be to bring a tent and simply walk along a stretch of the wall that is less frequented by tourists, take care with the rain though, also in the summer it often rains.
* You can also, preferably together with some other people spend a night on the Chinese wall. This is basically illegal so you better look out for guards..
* If you have little time and want to squeeze in a short visit to the Chinese wall the easiest place to go to is Badaling. Peaceful and quiet you can not accuse this place to be, with the masses of Chinese tourists that are there for a complete experience including the cable lift, camels, horses, 400 souvenir shops, museum, 360 degrees film and bob sleigh track. But its fun to watch, this is Chinese mass tourism in its most extreme version! Badaling can be reached very easily from Beijing by public transport. Every 15 minutes city bus 919 leaves Beijing from north of the forbidden city to Badaling. A bus ticket costs 10 Yuan, the trip takes 1 hour and the distance is 65 kilometres. A entrance ticket to Badaling (the wall it self) costs 45 Yuan (25 Yuan for students). There is even a Cirrus cash machine next to the Chinese wall.
* The Chinese wall at Simantai : the JingHua hotel in Beijing organizes a day trip for 60 Yuan to Simantai which is a more quiet part of the wall 160 kilometres from Beijing. This part of the wall is a lot less visited than Badaling, but I think that if you are interested in seeing some really unspoiled parts of the wall you have to go on your own a lot further perhaps with a tent.
- Travel by public transport :
Beijing - Chengdu (train and flight can be booked in the travel agency at Hotel JingHua)
* Travel by train from Beijing to Chengdu: there are 2 fast trains per day, tickets costs 470 Yuan for a bed in the hard sleeper (2nd class) and 650 Yuan for a bed in the soft sleeper (1st class).
* Travel by flight from Beijing to Chengdu : There is a daily flight at 14:00. Flight tickets cost 898 Yuan (it was earlier 1250 Yuan, but on my ticket that I bought at hotel JingHua it said 720 Yuan, perhaps its a good idea to check the prices somewhere else to compare with those of hotel JingHua). A taxi from JingHua Hotel to the Beijing airport cost me 61 Yuan (with a small taxi 1.2 Yuan per kilometre) + 15 Yuan motorway tax. The ride to the airport of Beijing took 35 minutes for a distance of 36 kilometres. In the airport of Beijing you have to pay another 50 Yuan airport tax.
