Yesterday, we had a quick breakfast (at home, we don’t have breakfast other than a cup of Indian chai, but here, because it’s vacation, we enjoy a lot of watermelon, some yoghurt, and some soya balls), after which we took a private car booked a day earlier on trip.com and travelled to visit the Mutianyu Great Wall. We paid around 100 Euros in total for this “VIP Private Charter Door-to-Door Pickup including admission ticket,” and it was worth it because the female driver named Guo came and picked us up from the front of our hotel at 9:00 in the morning (we confirmed a day earlier on WeChat), drove us there (we reached there in only one hour), waited for us, and took us back in front of the hotel around 16:00.
When we reached the entrance of the scenic spot, we got dropped off in a basement parking lot, from where we took a lift to go from level -1 to level 1. Suddenly, a beautiful view of the mountains was seen in the distance, and a lot of shops, with people starting to ask us if we were interested in booking a helicopter ride above the Great Wall, if we wanted to buy souvenirs, water, etc. From there, we needed to walk to the bus shuttle station for like 5 minutes, with many shops and restaurants on the left and right sides.
When we reached the shuttle bus station, we saw many buses there waiting for visitors to be taken to the shuttle bus alighting point (a place from where visitors can decide how to go up to the Great Wall: either by walking, or by taking the cableway (chair lift), or a cable car). All we needed to do there was scan our passports. We were guided to enter the bus, sat down, and in just a 5-minute bus ride, we were already at the base of the Mutianyu Great Wall. From there, we could decide how we wanted to go, as I mentioned earlier. Because one day before we booked a ticket on trip.com also for the cableway up and the cableway or toboggan slide down, we went to the cableway section. There, we only needed to scan our tickets booked via trip.com for the cableway. The waiting line was not small, but not that big either: I think it took us 20 minutes to finally get to sit in our chairlift seats. Suddenly, our feet were in the air, seeing many beautiful lush green trees below us, with the mountains and the Great Wall in the distance. I was a bit afraid of heights because it was my first time taking a cableway (maybe in the cable car, being closed with glass, it would not have been that “scary”). However, it was a fun first experience, especially because I was “flying” at the same level as my friends, the crows and magpies, which I saw flying here with grace. About 10 seconds before reaching the end of the cableway, we saw a guy showing us the peace sign with his wurst fingers, saying to smile for the camera. Dipty didn’t see him due to being more excited about the chairlift ride than me, this being also the reason why I looked better in the picture. After we quickly got down from the chairlift, we were asked if we wanted to pay for a printed version of our picture while we were “up in the air” for 60 CNY (30 per person), to which we of course agreed, paying for it with AliPay. After that, we walked on the Mutianyu Great Wall for a few minutes, enjoyed the view, and took some very nice pictures. I’m especially happy about one (which is featured as the main picture on this blog post, as well as seen below) where there was a crow flying towards me and sitting for 10 seconds on a small tree that had the Great Wall behind it.
Looks great, right? I mean, what were the chances of having that bird sit there on the top branch of that tree exactly when I was there? Maybe he wanted to say: „Hey, bellyman, don’t just sit and take pictures, get moving, do some rounds on the Great Wall, sucker!“ Crows are one of my favourite birds.
After that, we walked a bit towards a shop there and bought a cap and an Adidas jacket just for fun, to have them as a kind of “souvenir” memory. I think for the cap we paid 50 CNY, and for the jacket she started with 800 CNY, but in the end, after negotiating, which is a must in Asia, we ended up paying 150 CNY.
There were a lot of foreign tourists, with most of them being young kids with their families from Russia, which is not surprising, being neighbours.
After that, we had to decide if we wanted to take the cable car, chair lift, or the sliding toboggan to go down. We chose the sliding toboggan, scanned our tickets using the trip.com app, and waited in line for about half an hour. After that, there was only fun for about 6 minutes! We were both very happy with this experience.
After that, we walked a bit near the souvenir shops, saw a happy and relaxed orange cat laying under the sunlight, and enjoyed some drinks and ice cream (what especially impressed us was the ice cream cone, which was sweet and salty, with its dough being made with black sesame seeds).
Soon after, Guo, the female driver, wrote to us on WeChat that she was available to take us to any other destination from there if we wanted, such as the National Stadium-Bird’s Nest or the Water Cube; all we needed to do was let her know. We wrote to her that we would be down in the parking lot in 3 minutes and would like to return to the hotel already. She was there on time, waiting for us with a big smile. We reached the hotel in around 1 hour, being impressed while looking through the windows of the modern Arcfox electric car by how beautiful and full of flowers, especially roses, Beijing is.
Later in the evening, we had a small walk, then went to the same great place we went to yesterday and enjoyed vegetarian food such as dumplings, a hot pot tofu with vegetables that had a lot of Sichuan pepper in it that made our tongues numb and was super yummy, and an almond bean curd dessert.
After that, we finally returned to the hotel, did some laundry on the 9th floor for free, and packed our luggages. Why? Because, at the time I write this blog post, we are sitting on the train towards Shanghai, the city where we will be spending the next couple of days. We booked the train tickets already a few weeks in advance while in Germany, due to Dipty’s need as an Indian passport holder (for now) to show her itinerary in China when applying for the Chinese visa.
This morning, we took a taxi from the hotel to Beijingnan (Beijing South Railway Station), which took about 30 minutes and cost us around 6 Euros. When we reached the train station, which is huge and looks similar to an airport in Germany, all we needed to do was head to the security line that had a passport sign and text written above it on the wall (regular Chinese citizens use a different security line due to having Chinese IDs), show our passports to a guy working there, scan our luggages and bags, and that was it (this whole process took a maximum of 30 seconds). After that, it was easy to spot our gate, 15, in front of which we needed to wait half an hour before doing the check-in (simply just showing our passports again, which the check-in lady scanned; the passport numbers are connected to the train tickets on trip.com). After that, we went downstairs to platform 10, where the train was already waiting for passengers.
The second class on this train has a little bit more leg room than the second class in Germany and looks good (2 seats on the left side and 3 seats on the right side of the train). Four interesting aspects I want to mention: first, all seats are facing only the direction of driving and not both directions like we have on trains in Germany; second, every ca. 30 minutes they come and ask people if they want to buy something to drink or eat (moving their carts with food, snacks, and drinks), which in Germany we see only in first class (also, here, on every chair there is a QR code which can be scanned if a passenger wants to order something or even upgrade their ticket to first class, the service being called Railway Easy Go); third, they have a security person nicely dressed with a red star badge on their arm directly on the train. We happened to see her (it was a lady in this case) coming to a couple with their kid, who were sitting in front of us, because their kid started screaming very loudly several times (like kids do when they don’t get what they want; maybe his mom refused to buy him his favourite SpongeBob toy, who knows…), and she told them that if the kid didn’t stop being so loud, they would need to be removed from the train at the next station. After that, the kid’s parents (in this case, the mom was Chinese, and the father was an English-looking/speaking Westerner) succeeded in making him stop by saying that if he didn’t stop yelling, they would all be removed from the train in a few minutes. Since then, the kid has been silent like a lamb :)); fourth, a cleaning lady moves around every now and then with a cart, collecting garbage people want to throw away.
While looking through the train windows, I see a lot of high-rise buildings in the cities we drive through, many villages with agricultural lands being actively used and very well maintained, a lot of green areas, many greenhouses with vegetables, a lot of water canals built for the irrigation of these lands, etc.
China reminds me of my great-grandmother, Maica, who told me stories about how active Romania used to be during Ceaușescu’s time, not only in the agricultural sector (Romania used to be called “Grânarul Europei”), but also in the industrial sector (it produced synthetic diamonds, oil refineries, tractors, airplanes, cars, ships, etc.). I know that there are many people in Romania, especially the older ones who lived in those times, who are nostalgic for the great times they say they had in Romania until 1989. I would advise them to come and see China because I’m sure their hearts will be fulfilled. They will see that China went even further than that, keeping the prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity, and friendship values alive. What a beautiful country! I’m very impressed with their will, their level of education, and how the gained knowledge from their ancestors, as well as the new modern knowledge, is put into practice. Everything just works!
While I try to end this blog post on the train, an announcement came saying that smoking is prohibited on the entire train and that, in case someone tries breaking this rule, the smoke alarms will automatically start, and the train will also stop automatically, with the journey resuming only after the person is found. So if you are one of those crazy YouTubers who think that making a video about “How I delayed a train with hundreds of passengers in China” will be a great idea that will give you views and make you money, just don’t! You will be caught in a few seconds because here in China, not only are there security video cameras everywhere, but there is also the will of the people. And the Chinese people will take you from your darkness and bring you to the light faster than the speed of light :)). In China, they really mean it when they say, “We wish you a pleasant journey!” I like it a lot.
I wish I could tell Maica how right she was about China, but she left her body around 20 years ago. Where she went and what form she took, I cannot tell, and maybe it’s for the better that we should never know, because such a technology could also be used in a negative way (imagine you steal a cat from Istanbul, bring it to China, get caught, then are asked to pay a fine, but you don’t pay it because you just slipped on a banana peel and fell into a river and drowned; then what, should they have a technology to know where you went and in what form to make you pay it?! No, thanks; it’s good that some technologies are never brought to life :D).
I’m sure Maica was not enlightened like Buddha or Osho, first because she still ate meat, and second, because I wanted her to come again to enjoy a rich and full life without religion dogma but spirituality, as well as one where the husband doen’t leave the body while active in the second world war that enriched warmongers but removed millions of innocent people, so she must enjoy some great adventure in some form. If her or his form is human, insect, or anything else on this planet or others in this solar system, or elsewhere, I don’t know. I wish she/he is totally celebrating, as I do being in China now.
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