In July 2004 we made a 4 week trip to China and Tibet with Baobab. The trip started in Beijing and went south-west from there. We visited, amongst others, Xiahe, Chengdu and Lhasa. Here is a travelstory about a great trip.

Friday 9 july and Saturday 10 july
There is enough time for a haircut, doing the dishes and pack our bags in the morning. We leave for the Schiphol airport at 14:30. Some people of our travelgroup are already there. Without waiting for the rest we go to checkin. Some shopping in the duty free area and our plane leaves for Beijing at 17:25. The plane is not of the newest type and the crew is even older than the plane. Els, who was sitting next to us, asked for white wine in flemish. The stewardess asked: what? And Els again in her flemish accent: wine. What? Wine. After three times the stewardess got it.....wine. Nick was next to order and played it safe he ordered "a red". The steward on our side had a former career at Heineken, he kept bringing us beer, great! The night is very unquiet, and we get little sleep. At 8:30 the next day we arrive in Beijing. But the plane is really old and the doors refuse to open. It is getting hot in the plane when we finally hear the captain say: I switched of electricity and the doors are going to open manually. So thirty minutes later we step on chinese ground. There are some long queues at the customs. And when we finally enter the country there is no indication on where our luggage is. We start at number 1 and are lucky to find our bags there. Our tourleader Francoise is waiting for us. With a large bus the 13 of us are brought to hotel Harmony. The rooms are already clean and we are aloud to freshen up in the rooms. After that we enjoyed a drink in the bar of the hotel while Francoise tells us about the city of Beijing. After this explanation we go and search for an ATM. Not far from the hotel we find a Bank of China with an ATM that excepts our cards. Now we have money, we can explore the city. We walk to the Forbidden City. It is really hot and Beijing is bigger than we tought. So we are already tired when we arrive there. It seems like all the chinese had the same idea and visit the Forbidden City also this afternoon..... Where ever we look we see people, all tourists, most of them chinese. But the Forbidden city is even larger than we expected and there is room enough for all these visitors. We go back to the hotel after seeing most of the Forbidden City. We just arrived in our room when it starts to rain. And we are so glad we are inside...... Rain is flooding the city, and most of the group is soaking wet when they return to the hotel.
At seven we take 4 taxis to a restaurant for dinner with the group on our first night in Beijing. Francoise is also going to explain what the rest of the trip will be like. Before we get in the taxi Francoise tells us we have to walk the last part, because the street is to narrow for the car. That is not too attractive as it is still raining. Our driver looks at the businesscard of the restaurant asks something in chinese, which we don't understand, and start driving. It looks like he has no idea where to go to. Ofcourse we don't know either...... The car is turning and we take a narrow exit, just when we think this is not good we see the name of the restaurant on a door. He drops us off right in front of it. The only taxi that got here dry, the rest had to walk in the rain. The group is sitting at two tables and francoise orders 8 dishes for every table. The food is delicious. After dinner she starts to tell about the terrible (adventurous) trip ahead. Due to the rainy season it will be with some obstacles. All 13 cqn't wait for the adventure to start! In the mean it stopped raining. We walk through a street filled with bars and restaurants, but due to the rain earlier it is very quiet and we take a taxi back to the hotel. Together with Filip we have a beer in the bar of the hotel and just after midnight we go to bed.

Sunday 11 july

It is raining. We decide to stay in bed for a while. But not too long, that is just not our style, we are morning people. Breakfast in the hotel, a buffet with chinese and western dishes. Tastes good. Then we take the subway to the Lama Temple, a large buddhist temple, it used to be the residence of a prince. When he became emperor he moved to the forbidden city and his house became a temple. It starts to rain again and we decide to buy an umbrella. A small one for just one euro.Opposite the Lama Temple there is the Temple of Confucius. A lot less colorfull, a bit shabby. In the tempelcomplex there is also a building with the Beijing museum. A small museum with some unclear displays and very little english explanations.Despite the fact that the templecomplex looks shabby, it is certainly worth a visit. Back to the subway. Two stops from here and we are at the Drum and Bell towers. At least when we had walked the right way. We went from the citycentre instead of towards it. Later we discover we are taking the wrong route. And we decide it is early enough to walk the other way. We come through a Hutong (an old quarter)and the two towers are in the middle of it. In earlier times the drum and the bell would signal the right time. Today it is open to the tourist, you can climb the towers and have a great view over the Hutong. We walk back to the subway and make our way back to the hotel.
In the supermarket we buy a noodlesoup. With warm water from the thermos we make a spicy soup in our room. At 6:15 we take a few taxis to the acrobatic theatre. A short show, but very good. Half of our group is tired and takes the taxi back to the hotel. Els, Nick, Filip and us are going to HuHai with Francoise, this is a neighbourhood around a lake with many bars and restaurants.

Monday 12 july

It is 7:30 and we are eating breakfast. Again in the hotel again the very good buffet. Together with Filip we are going to take a taxi to the Tian Tan park. That sounds easy, but it is hard to find one. Many taxis are already taken and the others refuse to drive south. One driver says yes and we are very happy and get in. When he starts driving he is going north tough. We try to get him to turn around. He doesn't speak english, but it is very clear he can't or won't turn around. We give up and ask him to drive to the summer palace. No problem now and about 45 minutes later he drops us at the entrance of the summerpalace. It is very busy here, it seems that everybody who was in the forbidden city on saturday is now here. But the park around the summerpalace is huge and once inside it is not too crowded. In this huge park are several palaces and temples that were used during the summer by the royal family.


The covered hallway of over 700 meters between the different buildings is very impressive. The emperor never had to walk in the wind, rain or sun, the entire road was simply covered. In the park you can see many chinese recreating. They are flying their kites or take a small boat out on the lake. And ofcourse you can have some delicious meals or snacks at the various stalls. We have a noodlesoep lunch. After more buildings on the palacegrounds we take a taxi back to the hotel. This time the meter is running much faster than this morning, but still this 45 minutes drive costs only 7,50 Euro. In our hotel room we write some postcards to family and friends, At the third floor of the hotel we check our email. And it is time to go to the opera. This time we have 3 taxis to a small theatre were a performance of the Beijing Opera is. Tom and Filip can't help to burst out in laughter when the leading lady starts singing like a cat, but worse. (An example is onour video page) The entire show only lasts one hour and that is more than enough! Nevertheless we advise everybody to once go and see a Beijing Opera performance, only the make-up is worth it. After the performance the group decides to eat outside at a restaurant close to teh theatre. The owner is afraid his plastic chairs won't hold the heavy foreigners and all men get a second chair under them. Very strange to see but certainly not comfortable. So after the dinner we hurry back to the hotel.

Tuesday 13 july

At 6:30 we get a wake-up call. A quick shower, pack our bags, breakfast and checkout because the bus is leaving at 7:30. Today we are going to see the Great Wall, but our bus got stuck in a huge trafficjam and it took over three hours to get to the Great Wall. From the parkinglot we try to avoid buying something from the many souvenirstands before we are at the stairs leading to the Wall. But that is not nearly at the Wall itself.. a huge climb and about 30 minutes later it turns out it was all worth it. The sky is clear and the sun and blue sky provide perfect pictures. It is a good thing we use sunblock this morning. After over an hour exploring we make our way back down. We are walking down, but some in our group had decided to slide down in a sort of sledge, or take the cablecar. Once we enter the souvenirarea we known we deserved a tshirt with: I climbed the Great Wall. For only a few euro we buy two. A quick lunch and off we go to the airport. Elly and Tineke are waiting there for us, they were here two years ago and visited the Wall then, today they shopped in Beijing. Despite the fact we are only travelling for a few days we already are overweight with our luggage. But the weight of the suitcases is devided by 16, the number of suitcases and the number of people, the result is no fine. We are relaxed waiting for our airplane to board when Francoise thinks she hears something announced. And yes, she is right our plane is boarding......at another gate at the other end of the airport. We hurry through the terminal and are just in time to get on the bus to the airplane. But when we enter the plane we notice we are missing two people Wim and Marjo are not here. Hope they are not in the wrong plane. But after 10 minutes they show up and we can finally leave for Lanzhou. It is already dark when we arrive there. We put our luggage in the room and go to the foodstreet. To eat and drink something. It is muslimteritory so it has to be lambsateh. The foodstreet is great to see, the things you can buy here... hope we don't have eat everything. There are duckbeaks, or legs, entire heads of other animals and much more. It is lovely weather and we stay outside untill late, drinking a beer.

Read more in part 2: Xiahe