Like the rest of China, there’s no shortage of unscrupulous characters preying on tourists. We ventured into a temple that was part of the visitors pass to check it out. We bowed to the deities and all like our parents always told us. Out of nowhere this dude comes out with incense for us to burn. That’s cool and all. Turns out he wants 100yuan from me and 10yuan from karen for the incense. That’ like $12. He gave no warning about the price and shit. Fuck that! I think he was yapping about the worthiness of my donation. In my broken mandarin, i told him the gods would not like you extorting cash from me and just walked out.

Since that incident and a massive funeral procession that happened by the hotel, Ping Yao turned into some creep heeby jeeby town. We then wandered to an old admin bldg that was a site of celebrations with a decent courtyard. There was also a prison there and gave us the chills. The doors were open and DARK and the torture items were hanging along the place as if they were prides of joy. The Chinese sure know how to torture people. Add to that, the place was open for centuries until like 1960!

Ping Yao in Shanxi province will probably be stuck in time for the rest of it’s existence. Well at least the city inside the city walls will be. The city was designated a UNESCO world heritage site recently so it’s protected from the greedy Beijing hands knocking everything down to put up pointless skyscrapers. Ping Yao was the city where the modern banking system was invented. Ironically, there are no banks to be found. In typical chinese fashion, the stash is probably stored in an old cookie tin under the bed, next to the packed away blanket and flip flops.

The city outside the wall is like any other Chinese city. It’s bustling with people, street markets filled with fresh foods, clothing stores, beggers, hustlers, smoke belching buses, bootleg dvds, electronic stores, and LeBron James Nike posters. It’s what’s inside the walls that’s the main attraction.

Always ready for profits, the Chinese know how to milk Ping Yao. There’s a cottage industry of hotels and budget accomodations that boast hot western food, hot showers, bike rentals, running water for 24hours, hot coffee, and internet. The knick knack shops sprawled around all have signs in English–not Chinglish, English. They even have a 3 day museum pass. Figuring out how to validate it is a bit confusing but can save you $$$ if you want to see all the temples and museums. While the museums are somewhat interesting, they kinda get repetitive after the third one. There’s the master bedroom, guest room, the eldest son’s room, the kitchen, the room displaying the outfits from the old days, and the room where the statues of deities are kept. The courtyards all start to look alike, and you become certain that it’s all the same museum because that tour group was just there with you at the other museum.

We left for Da Tong in Shanxi Province on an 23:25pm train out of Beijing West. Every waiting room was packed with travelers heading home or migrant travelers heading out to seek their next job. As we waited to board, we took a seat across from this American looking couple. Funny how I wanted to sit near a white American couple. It was finally boarding time and everyone made a mad dash to the line, pushing, shoving, and crushing anything in their way to the ticket collector. I didn’t see the point in the rush since our seats were assigned. We “splurged” and purchase private compartments. It wasn’t really private since we had to share with 2 other folks. Private just mean a locking door.

Once the train started pulling out of Beijing, 2 ticket collectors came in to the compartment to do what they have to do. They said something to me in mandarin, to which I stared blankly. The guy at the bunk above karen screamed out “passport.” Passport? what the fuck? I showed them, they made some snarky–and I detected some envy–remark “oh, meiguoren, noo yauk.” Passed it back to me, closed the door and they were on their way. I had a good nights sleep. No one else was there to wake me up until we got to Da Tong. It was the cold coming in from the window that kept me from sleeping through the night. All in all, not bad a ride at all.

At around 7am, we arrived in Da Tong all groggy and ready to look for a taxi to the hotel. This dude from the CITS office pointed us out and said “CITS.” Must’ve been my hat hair that gave it away. We followed him and made arrangements to see the Hanging Monastery (above left) and the Buddhist Grottoes (above right). Got into a taxi, checked in at the hotel, washed up, downed some watery coffee, and headed back out to the CITS office at the train station. The dude recognized us and had us wait at the vestibule. Two Brits Simon and Matthew came out, and I let out a hello, they said hello, I asked if they’re on the CITS tour, they said yes. Now we’re on our way. Nice. It’s always a pleasure to meet other travelers who are friendly and share the same adventure spirit. Both are on their round the world trek and have been traveling together for a couple of months after meeting up in China.

We spent the whole day with them checking out the two sites, eating lunch, sharing laughs over some beer and chips, and deciphering the menu at a local noodle shop. We even thought about checking out this odd looking porno shop. It would’ve been great to have traveled on with them, but I’m sure we’ll see them whenever they hit New York. Or when we hit London or Leeds again.

First time visitors to Beijing have to visit the Great Wall. You just have to. So of course Karen and I had to go and see what the big fuss is all about. Rather than going to where the crowds at Badaling were, we chose the less traveled Simatai. Vaguely Planet made it sound relatively simple to get to. Board the bus to Miyun, then a mini bus to Simatai. Nothing to it. For some unknown reason, the editors decided to leave the part out about which Miyun stop to get off and that there is no minibus.

About 90 minutes from Beijing, karen and I enter this little town with signs with Miyun all over. Well we should be in Miyun, afterall, the ticket collector said we should exit here to go to the Wall. Once we got off, we were swarmed by hawkers and hustlers. They knew where were going and we don’t belong. This big fat dude came up and followed us. These folks do not take no for an answer. We walked into a police station thinking they would know. I mean c’mon, it’s the fucking Great Wall! What Chinese in the area wouldn’t know how to get there? A cop is a cop no matter where, so they have no clue. Maybe I should’ve came in bearing the chinese equivalent of krispy kremes or something. Basically, we were told to get back on that 980 bus to get there.

We left the station, the big fat dude was outside waiting, preying, ready to go for the kill. He followed us back on and all these folks were just yapping to us as we waited for the bus. The bus finally came, we tried to board, but that fat fuck tried to block the way. He was so fat, he did block the door. I shoved him out the way, and I guess he yelled at us and probably told the driver and ticket collector not to let us on. The ticket collector told us there’s no bus to the Wall, but for Y200 we can get there! Fuck that! We still had no clue what Miyun stop to get off at. Rather than being harrassed constantly on this second bus ride, we just got off by all these banks. There was a bookstore and banks…. someone’s gotta speak english. Nope. Last resort, call the damn place from my mobile. At this point, who cares about roaming charges. The folks at the Wall “spoke” english. I just couldn’t understand what was coming out their mouths. They couldn’t even tell me how to get there!

Karen and i decided that we can walk to the Wall. We walked and walked and walked and wound up at the Miyun bus terminal. No minibus, but countless hawkers following us waiting for us to get in their taxi. We finally decided that we’ll use the one who was not following us. Negotiated Y150 for the trip and then we were off to see the Wall.

About an hour later we arrived at Simatai. We had planned to be here around noon, but the troubles getting here delayed us about 2 hours. The place closes at 4 so we only had a short time up there. We took the cable car up to the mountain, and hiked for about 30 minutes up the Wall. Along the way, hawkers. These folks are everywhere. When we got up there, hawkers welcomed us. “hi, water, ice cream, soo-neeer.” Water yes, but 10yuan! bastard! Ice cream? It’s 2C. No. Soo-neeer? Thinking back I should’ve bought the “I climbed the great wall shirt.” Tacky, yes.

We pretty much had the Wall to ourselves except 5 or 6 European tourists. The views were incredible, the Wall was amazing. it almost justified the day’s insanity. The plan to hike on the wall was scrapped due to the short time we had there. Nonetheless, we took lots of photos and took home a piece of the Wall for my soo-neeer.

Word of advice to those who want to get the Simatai: if your hostel/hotel offers a bus ride there, take it. Otherwise, grab 970 or 980 all the way to the last stop. Negotiate a price any of those “taxi drivers” to the Wall. Don’t spend more than Y150.

We checked in for the night at HaoYuan Binguan, and planned on washing and resting up before looking for some grub that evening. I’m laying on one of the beds watching CCTV4 when Karen let’s out a scream from the bathroom. I go to see what happens and I see her sitting on the sink and water gushing out from a pipe next to the toilet. I was expecting her to tell me that the toilet overflowed. It was a good thing it wasn’t. Imagine the stuff floating around if it was overflowed.

Apparently, Karen assumed that the flusher was a step flusher, just like it was at the airport. However, instead of stepping on what looked like the flusher button, she kicked it in. These must have been the shittiest pipes ever made. Back home, pipes usually win the war between man and pipe. Not here in China though. The water just kept coming out, I ran to the receptionist, told her what happened. This guy in a suit ran in to see the problem, turned around and returned with golashes, mop, and some tools. They even apologized and I didn’t have the heart to tell them it was our fault. We felt so bad! The water supply had to be shut for an hour so there goes the idea of washing up before dinner. We’ll just go have peking duck smelling like an airplane and Beijing toilet water.

It hit us once we got off the airport bus that China was going to offer an experience like no other. Sure every country is unique in their own right, but I’ve yet to see anything like China and China probably hasn’t seen much of people like me and Karen.

As the locals all tell us, we look Chinese, but we don’t speak Chinese. My laoxing, that’s because we’re Chinese with roots in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Canton), and most of all we’re American. We just left the part about Americans out. The Putonghau speaking set seem to understand that us and the rest of the Cantonese speakers probably struggle somewhat with Mandarin. We didn’t just struggle, we just didn’t speak it except the Pimsleur phrase, “wo bu hui shuo putonghua.” Yeah, that comes in real handy.

Upon descending the bus, we and the everyone who was on were swarmed by hawkers and hustlers trying to make some cash off the tourists. Who knew that these folks do not take no for an answer. I gotta give it to these folks, they sure are persistent. I do wander how much money they do earn from being so aggressive to tourists. I would imagine it’d be quite a turn off. A bunch of strangers yapping in my ears and tapping and pulling my arms while thumbing for directions to our guesthouse didn’t help with the warming up to the locals. Just piss off and let me read my Vaguely Planet book (more on that later). To get a way from these folks, we ran into Beijing station metro stop. According to our metro map, HaoYuan Binguan is right by the Dengshikou station. Too bad the map didn’t indicate clearly that this station is still under construction. What to do, what to do. I picked up the mobile, quickly dismissing the $3/minute international roaming charges, dialed the hotel. The receptionist suggested we take a taxi which should cost about 20Y (around USD$2) from where we were.

Simple enough yeah? This is China, so of course it’s not simple. It was around 6pm and I think the drivers want to go have dinner and didn’t want to pick us up. Our fare was refused by not just one but numerous drivers. Then came our saviour. This frail old guy who looks like he weighs less than my backpack comes riding in on his 3-wheel cargo bike offering us a ride. We agreed for 20Y. The ride was so slow that women and children walked faster than us. This man has got to be the most fit person on earth being able to haul the 2 of us and 2 stuffed backpacks on that little bike. Throughout the ride, he told us how bad the place we’re staying in is and offered to take us to a better place. I wonder how he knew that HaoYuan Binguan sucked ass when he had no idea that it even existed. The old dude took us to another place up the road thinking we’ve arrived. He even asked for an extra 20Y when we finally got to HaoYuan Binguan. My sympathy for this old guy quickly disappeared like dissenters in China. I tossed him 22Y as he yelled at us.