A week in Beijing and Beyond

Been in China for nearly 2 weeks...


Beijing was a perpetual draw dropping experience; the place seems more capitalist than capitalism: all power to the communist dream machine.

Spent most of my time in Bejing just walking around, enjoying the atmosphere. Once morning I took the train as far east as possible and wound up in a giant building site. Pretty interesting, but not much to photograph, aside from the dead dog down some dingy alleyway near the train station. Thanks Fido.

After Beijing took the train to another big city called Lanchou. Like Beijing but without the awe inspiring scenes all around. Just a big, dirty industrial burg with millions of Chinese people staring at me. Kinda cool place though, normal China.

Lanchou was also the place Benjamin and I parted ways. I am now solo in China, which was similar to being part of a duo in China, sans constant bickering about ridiculous things. Spoke to Ben recently via text and all seems ok with him. At least there’s no hard feelings about any of it. And I have a suspicion we’ll be crossing paths again at some point.

Now I’m in a place called Juiyuguan, fabled last fort of the Great Wall of China. Went to the fort today on a rare foray into complete touristic indulgence, and was pretty interesting actually. Then I caught another taxi a few miles further out of town to view the actual wall. Had a fight over the fare and told him where to go… he went there. When I got back from my exploration there was no taxi and no chance of one arriving any time soon, so I started on down the road, thumbing my way along. About half an hour later a huge American 4wd picked me up. The plushed ride I’ve ever been in. They took me all the way to where I could get a cab back into town. Quite an interesting day really.

In two hours I head for Turpan. Belgaux says it’s an amazing place. Hope he’s right.


More Soon…



djb