The Far West: nineteen days in China by Carrie King

Shortly after our second, successful, departure, it was about 5 pm Vancouver (Pacific Daylight) time. The new captain noted that it was about 8 am in Beijing; I reset my watch. I had started my stopwatch on takeoff, and I let that run as my connection to home time. We crossed the dateline partway through the flight, which turned it into September 2.

I recalled from turn-of-the-millennium TV coverage that I would not need to change my watch again until the flight back from Hong Kong. Because from Beijing to Guangzhou, Shanghai to Lhasa, all of China operates within one time zone: Beijing time.

Bits from my journal:

6:42:30 since takeoff, about 3:10 pm Beijing time: KAM CHAT KA. Russkis off the port and starboard. 3:23 to go according to the handy GPS data screens. Actually we already passed Kamchatka; we're over the Sea of Okhotsk. I wonder if [commercial passenger] planes ever flew along here during the Cold War.

... I'm still not used to this haircut. It just doesn't look like me. [I cut my hair, the shortest it's ever been, the day before I left.]

Every time I go on a trip, I spend an initial phase seized by an attack of homesickness. bothersome ... remember wanting to get the heck away from home ... all i want to do is go home and be cozy. ... i want my dee vee dee.

... plaid coat. guy is wearing a yellow plaid coat. suit? didn't see his pants.

... I WANT A REAL BED ...

wow, they're feeding us again.

After about 10 hours 27 minutes on the stopwatch, we touched down in Beijing's early evening, about 7 pm. I unkinked my legs as best I could, and we trooped out into a thoroughly modern airport, with more glass-railed walkways. Up escalator, round pathways (moving sidewalks! I love moving sidewalks!), down escalator; there were many people waiting for planes in the main gate areas below us, but there was room for many more. All around, there hung banners for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, complete with five-color logo, even though the IOC won't make that decision for another year.

At the bottom of the escalator into baggage claim stood four youngish Chinese with yellow Overseas Adventure Travel clipboards. As I walked to them, the fellow on the far right stepped forward and said, "You're in MY group." I gave my name, and he said yes, he knew. I guess it wasn't too hard to figure, since I was not only young but traveling alone. His English name was Fred; he would be our Fearless Leader throughout the trip.

I was curious how challenging the customs process would be. Answer: not very. My visa was in order, the two officers (who looked very young) seemed excruciatingly bored and neither spoke much English nor smiled, and I was on my way.

Evening seen from a bus in Beijing: many many small shops with groups of people sitting out front talking or eating or playing a game (usually cards or mahjong). Crescent sliver of a red moon. Girls riding demurely on the backs of boys' bicycles. An abundance of people transporting themselves in various ways: feet, bicycles, tricycles with seats or wagonbeds in back, motorcycles, sub-sub-compact cars, little truck wagon things. Swarms of little red taxis. Narrow streets and alleys. The old Tower of the Drum (?) as we turned round its corner.

I shot none of these things because it was too dark by then and I was exhausted. We arrived at the Bamboo Garden Hotel, turning off a tree-lined road and driving up an alley until we arrived at the front gate. It was a building from the last dynasty, officers' quarters I think they said. We stumbled to our rooms and then managed to find our way back to the restaurant for dinner, before attempting to sleep.

All through the trip, our group stayed in different hotels from the other three OAT groups that had departed with us. After Xian we only even saw one other group before Hong Kong, because the other two were cruising downriver and we were to go upstream. Of these upriver two, we seemed to be the guinea-pig group, testing new hotels that OAT had never used before; the Bamboo Garden was one of these. I liked it fine, though the carpet in our room needed a bit of cleaning. The garden courtyard was scenic, and the staff were friendly. Only the front-desk people spoke much English, and that incompletely, but sign language can get you a long way. If I'd been too busy or lazy to learn any Chinese phrases before my trip, well, that's my own problem.

When we got back from dinner, we found in our rooms several bottles of water each, as promised by Fred: one a day for our stay in Beijing. OAT had warned us not to drink tap water in China, and said they would provide us with a bottle a day, but that we might want more and it would be generally available in local stores. I had brought a self-filtering water bottle to use for my extra water (and in case of emergency) and it worked fine -- though I didn't put it to full test, because I also used iodine tablets, just to make double-certain sure.

Chinese bottled water turned into an unexpected bit of entertainment for me throughout the trip. I've never paid much attention to American bottled water labels, which tend to feature the manufacturer's name and maybe a picture of a scenic mountain. Many Chinese brands were like that too, but there were several that were more interesting. Best title went to Wahaha, narrowly edging out Tibetan Magic Water. The "Robust" brand featured a handsome fellow in no fewer than six different enticing poses -- collect them all! Which I did, I'm so easily amused.