Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Bye Bye Beijing
The problem with going to the Great Wall of China is not getting to the Great Wall of China. The problem with going to the Great Wall of China is all the other places you also have to visit when you just want to see the Great Wall of China. Sadly, the prices for public transport are higher than the cost of a day tour with one of the myriad choices the internet had to offer. I’d been texting back and forth with several guides, and chose to go with one that would ‘only’ take us to a jade factory, a silk museum and a tea house along the way.
The morning of the 24th we were picked up from the subway station at 8:00 AM sharp. We joined a small group of fellow travelers: a French couple and a Dutch family. I decided I was American today, leaving the Dutch oblivious to the fact I could understand everything they were saying. Our group drove for about 40 minutes before reaching our first mandatory stop: the jade factory.
A kind lady gave us a quick walkthrough of the work floor and showed us some of the different popular products they sell. Most of the required 40 minutes we had to spend there were spent aimlessly walking around the shop, pretending to be interested in stuff. We did devote some time to analyzing a gigantic ship made out of jade. It had apparently taken 12 craftsmen over a year to make it. The ship had finally been sold to a Russian businessman a year ago for several million Yuan (also a lot of dollars!). What we couldn’t understand was why they’d decided to make another one. Poor Russian probably thought he’d have something unique… Alas, it’ll never be that way with ‘Made in China.’
Onwards to the Great Wall! Or at least, that’s what we thought… Apparently the Dutch people had also booked and paid for a visit to the Ming Tombs on the way to the Wall. Our guide didn’t make a big deal out of the confusion. A short drive later the van arrived to explore the Tombs. The Ming Tombs house 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors and is therefore quite a large complex. Of course, parts were ‘under renovation,’ so we only got to see part of it. Emperor Zhu Zaihou and his three Empresses’ final resting place happened to be the one we got to have a look it. Not terribly impressive…
The treasure town behind the tomb was an equal time-waste, other than the photo opportunities on the wall. The group quickly headed back to the van for another hour of driving to the – start the drums – Great Wall of China! Francesca and I had chosen to visit one of the less touristy parts of the Wall: Mutianyu. After arrival we bought cable-car tickets up to the Wall and toboggan tickets back down. Francesca had told me on several occasions how Anthony had gone by himself without her knowledge, leaving her the boring cable-car ride back down. She was bent on trying the toboggan herself now as well!
But before I tell you about our experience at the Wall, here’s some background information from the Lonely Planet: “The ‘original’ wall was begun over 2000 years ago during the Qin dynasty (221-207 BC), when China was unified under Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Separate wall that had been constructed by independent kingdoms had been constructed to keep out marauding nomads were linked together. The effort required hundreds of thousands of workers – many of whom were political prisoners – and 10 years of hard labor under General Meng Tian. […]
The wall never really did perform its function as impenetrable line of defense. As Genghis Khan supposedly said, “The strength of a wall depends on the courage of those that defend it.” Sentries could be bribed. However, it did work very well as a kind of elevated highway, transporting people and equipment across mountainous terrain. The wall was largely forgotten after [the Manchu armies imposed over two and a half centuries of foreign rule over China]. Lengthy sections of it have returned to dust and the wall might have disappeared entirely had it not been rescued by the tourist industry.”
After a bit of confusion about which cable-car to take Francesca and I headed up for our personal encounter with the Great Wall of China. A mere 3 kilometers (of a total of over 6000 kilometers) of Wall loomed in the distance, as other visitors tobogganed down below. It was quite impressive to see the giant stone structure appear in the distance. We arrived at the top around noon and had roughly 2 hours of Wallking (he he) to do.
Francesca and I decided to turn left, where the longer part of the still standing remains of the wall were. Francesca and I immediately spotted the first Ming-dynasty guard tower. The amount of tourists was very manageable and we managed to get a good number of pictures without others in it. For about one hour we took pictures and walked – mostly down – towards more towers and wall in the distance. Around 1:00 PM we realized we had to turn back, since the return would be mostly uphill. It was quite a sweat-fest, but luckily some hawkers had made their way up the Wall as well, selling overpriced water and ice cream. Needless to say, we had to buy some, but the ice water made sure we survived the heat.
Around 1:30 PM Francesca and I made it back to the starting point. The tobogganing track beckoned below us. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with tickets for the cool way down. Furthermore, some kid had apparently fallen and dislocated his knee. It slowed the whole process down even more. Some medics were standing around, but didn’t seem to be doing too much. We couldn’t see a way they were going to get the kid down either, since he wouldn’t fit on the cable-car. Perhaps they should’ve slid him down the toboggan track…
After a good 15 minutes of waiting Francesca and I finally got to go! We sat down, pulled our brakes up and raced off. Well, I wanted to stay with Francesca to take a video of her, but lost a lot of speed doing so. The track was actually quite long, taking a good 5 minutes to descend. I would say it’s definitely recommendable for those with the tiniest hunch for adrenaline.
At 2:00 PM lunchtime arrived. We were not sure what to expect from a tourist restaurant so close to the Wall, but we can honestly say we were pleasantly surprised. The staff filled the Lazy Susan with sliced potatoes, omelet, chicken & vegetables, tofu, eggplant, Chinese cabbage and of course rice. Francesca loved the chicken; whilst I thought the eggplant and tofu (why does nobody like tofu!) were successful dishes.
The long drive back to Beijing was halted around 3:30 when our guide pointed out the 2008 Olympic Swimming Pool and Center in the distance. The mandatory pictures were taken and the drive continued. 15 minutes later the Silk Museum became our next exciting adventure. There were some pictures of foreign dignitaries in silk outfits, as well as a hands-on explanation of the silk-making process. Of course they tried to sell us large silk blankets afterwards… We snuck away and waited for the rest of the group to catch up.
Just after 4:00 PM the Dr. Tea Teahouse opened its doors for us (and group after group of other tourists). We were led into a little room, where they left us high and dry for about 20 minutes before someone finally came in to unveil the mysteries of tea. Trying the different teas was nice, but we’d already heard all of it before. After the mandatory 40 minutes were over our group headed back to the van. The guide had a ‘surprise’ in mind: a free massage. Not feeling much for 5 minutes of free foot massage followed by 30 minutes of trying to sell us more massages Francesca and I asked to be dropped off at the nearest subway station.
A tradition we’ve tried to uphold for hosts that we stay with for a longer period of time is making our famous pasta for them. Here’s Francesca description of the rest of the evening: “We decided to head to the grocery store, which in itself proved to be a bit of an adventure. There was only one little wall for Western food which we couldn’t find until the end of our shopping experience. That evening we joined Kevin at home for dinner. He had invited a few of his friends over and some of them spoke a bit of English so we had some nice conversation. Kevin and his buddies spent a lot of time cooking the chicken and other meat skewers, along with a bunch of other snacks they set out on the table. There was fruit, some interesting bread and veggies. I wasn’t too hungry but Henk made me a sandwich later from the roasted chicken we bought that really filled me up. Yum!”
Before we went to bed we worked on our plans for the mandatory border crossing which lay ahead of us. We had both thought we could just cross the border to Mongolia, come back in and get the second entry of our double entry visa started. In part, this was true. Sadly, it was only true for holders of American passports… I had to get myself a Mongolian visa. It being a Saturday the consulate wouldn’t reopen until Monday. Just our luck… We did read on the embassy’s website they’d have same-day visas. We decided to book a flight to Erlian – a Chinese city on the border with Mongolia – for Tuesday.
The 25th of July was our first quiet day in weeks. Francesca was feeling a little sick, but the chicken sandwiches I made her got her feeling a lot better. We watched some movies and worked on our plans for the second half of our visa. That evening Kevin invited some of his friends over for dinner. Francesca still wasn’t feeling the greatest, so I went down and prepared our pasta. It was not easy cooking with a very limited supply of pots and pans, but in the end everything got done and food was served family style. It was funny to see Kevin’s and his friends attacking our food with chopsticks, whilst we stuck to much more comfortable forks. We got compliments for our creation from Kevin, as well as his friends, but the best one came from one of the young kids who tried our sauce and exclaimed a loud ‘YUM!’
Sadly, horror struck that night as the power went off… It was too late to go anywhere and Kevin could only find out that some construction workers had done damage to the cables nearby. They expected the power to be back ‘soon.’ Francesca and I slept an extremely uncomfortable night in the heat, whilst being eaten alive by an army of mosquitoes. To make matters worse, Francesca had gotten more sick and felt too horrible to do anything on the 26th.
That Monday I went out by myself to get my visa for Mongolia sorted. The Lonely Planet had directions listed, which I followed to the letter. Unfortunately those letters didn’t get me to the Mongolian Consulate... After passing several Eastern European embassies guarded by unfriendly Chinese guards I finally found the queue for the Mongolian shack. And when I say shack, I really mean shack. There was one tiny building with one open window and one employee who calmly handled all the requests. Of course, there was quite a line. I grabbed an application form, grabbed for my pen and noticed it had exploded in my pants. Great, hands and leg covered in ink. What else could possibly go wrong? I borrowed a pen, filled out the form and waited. After roughly 60 minutes in the heat it was my turn and my form was taken. I got my receipt back, which I read on the spot. It said: pick up on the 27th. No way! I turned to the lady and pleaded for the same-day service. I pleaded, I begged, I offered extra money; nothing worked. There was only one thing to do: leave and find another solution.
I called Francesca, told her the bad news and discussed the options. We knew that leaving one day later would mean we’d overstay our visa by one day. Reports online had told us that this could lead to serious problems, fines and even arrests in some cases. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about yet! Luckily we’d also read you can avoid all of this by going to a police station or the entry/exit bureau and tell them our plight. If our story would be good enough we’d get a temporary extension and we’d avoid trouble with the Chinese law. We had no choice but to face just that.
My trouble weren’t quite over though. Since the Chinese government restricts internet usage so much finding an internet cafe turned out to be a bigger problem than I thought. Luckily Francesca reminded me hotels usually have business rooms. I spotted a big hotel in the distance and went inside. I quickly looked up Travelzen’s phone number and logged off again. I then called Travelzen to change the date of our ticket, which they did for free. Finally, one thing that went right that day. I had to go to the Bank of China to pay for my visa, which took another 30 minutes of patient waiting and thumb twiddling. I eventually managed to pay, got on the train and returned to a still sick Francesca, which was only made worse by the lack of A/C. Furthermore, Kevin would be working late that day and said he wouldn’t return until 11:00 PM.
By that time Francesca and I had decided to go to bed. Sleep, however, was not part of that deal. We’d killed most mosquitoes, but the heat was too draining to actually get any shut-eye. We decided to call every hostel and hotel in the Lonely Planet to see if any of them had availability for 2 nights. Finally, after a dozen calls one said yes. I packed our bags in the dark – I think we only lost 1 sock – and called Kevin to help us get a taxi to said hotel. We both felt bad we had to leave him in such a rush, without a proper goodbye, but we really couldn’t risk Francesca not getting better.
We arrived at the Qingzhuyuan hotel well past midnight. Not surprisingly, our troubles were still not over. I couldn’t produce my passport since the Mongolian consulate was holding it. Furthermore, they wouldn’t let us stay at all at first, since our visas would technically be up that day. I gave them copies of my passport and visa on a USB-stick, which helped. After some pleading we were allowed to stay for one night. We slept quite decently and woke up a tiny bit refreshed the next morning.
The staff would not let us extend for one more night unless we went to the police station for a special extension. We promised we’d go right after our free breakfast. Still, they wouldn’t let us leave our bags in the room. I had to pack them and move them to their storage room. After the free breakfast (which I wasn’t going to miss out on) Francesca and I walked to the police station. Surprise! Nobody there spoke English. Another foreigner with some Chinese skills helped us, but the lady seemed entirely daft, spending all of her time talking to us in Chinese and pointing at Francesca’s passport.
There was no way we were going to get help here. The entry/exit bureau was our last hope for clemency. Fearing we’d run out of time we took a taxi there and headed inside. First, we tried the counter for people that’d overstayed their visas. The reply was that they couldn’t do anything for us. The lady advised us to just go to the airport and pay the fee. She was kind enough to call the hotel for us, but the staff wouldn’t believe her and said we needed the paperwork. Sigh… The lady did tell us there was another window where we could ask for help. I stood in line, put on my most apologetic face and explained the situation to another lady. Her stone-cold answer: “If you overstay you visa you are illegal. You must not break law.” I told her we understood that, and that we were worried about it too. I told her we’d leave one day late, that we would pay any fines, but that we just needed a hotel for the night. She not only flat-out refused to call the hotel; she just turned away from me and walked off. How rude…
Francesca and I had no other choice but to go back to the hotel and hope they’d give us some leeway. Our hopes weren’t terribly high and our thoughts were confirmed at arrival. No room for us. I talked to one of the nicer staff members, hoping they’d at least let us stay the day, so we could go to the airport late at night. Miraculously, that was okay, as long as we also ate some food there. Francesca and I installed ourselves on a comfortable couch, finally being able to sit for a while. I ordered Francesca a club sandwich, whilst I had to leave to pick up my visa.
I left early to make sure I’d be there on time. You never know what tricks these people might pull! A long queue awaited me at the consulate. Worried that I’d gotten the time wrong I asked around. I found out everybody was queuing for visa extensions. The pick-up window hadn’t opened yet. In my head I wished them all good luck, and patiently waited for the window to open. Surprisingly, it opened a little earlier than expected and I got my visa quickly (after shamelessly skipping the queue – serves them right). Ah, the relief when I saw the shiny new 30 Day Mongolian visa in my passport.
In the meantime, Francesca had worked on her posts. On the way back to the hotel I took some pictures of lovely Beijing and its infrastructure, as well as the neighborhood we were in. We’d read and heard that we were actually in a pretty neat ‘hutong.’ I finally had time to look around and found some cool architecture to snap a few shots of. Francesca and I sat around for a while watching Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen (not recommendable!). Dinnertime came and we ordered a plate of spaghetti, a fruit salad and some garlic bread. We talked about our plans and Francesca told me she didn’t entirely like my plan of heading straight to airport that night.
After the very mediocre food I had a look around at some of the hotels nearby and found a stale and slightly dodgy hotel not too far away. I sat around for over half an hour whilst the staff seemed to calculate the days on our visa, pointed at the dates, ran off with our passports, not returning for 5 minutes (got me worried!) and finally accepted our money. I ran back to Francesca and moved the bags to our mini-room. We headed to bed as early as we could to ease the pain of the 5:00 AM alarm the next morning.
The morning of the 24th we were picked up from the subway station at 8:00 AM sharp. We joined a small group of fellow travelers: a French couple and a Dutch family. I decided I was American today, leaving the Dutch oblivious to the fact I could understand everything they were saying. Our group drove for about 40 minutes before reaching our first mandatory stop: the jade factory.
A kind lady gave us a quick walkthrough of the work floor and showed us some of the different popular products they sell. Most of the required 40 minutes we had to spend there were spent aimlessly walking around the shop, pretending to be interested in stuff. We did devote some time to analyzing a gigantic ship made out of jade. It had apparently taken 12 craftsmen over a year to make it. The ship had finally been sold to a Russian businessman a year ago for several million Yuan (also a lot of dollars!). What we couldn’t understand was why they’d decided to make another one. Poor Russian probably thought he’d have something unique… Alas, it’ll never be that way with ‘Made in China.’
Onwards to the Great Wall! Or at least, that’s what we thought… Apparently the Dutch people had also booked and paid for a visit to the Ming Tombs on the way to the Wall. Our guide didn’t make a big deal out of the confusion. A short drive later the van arrived to explore the Tombs. The Ming Tombs house 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors and is therefore quite a large complex. Of course, parts were ‘under renovation,’ so we only got to see part of it. Emperor Zhu Zaihou and his three Empresses’ final resting place happened to be the one we got to have a look it. Not terribly impressive…
The treasure town behind the tomb was an equal time-waste, other than the photo opportunities on the wall. The group quickly headed back to the van for another hour of driving to the – start the drums – Great Wall of China! Francesca and I had chosen to visit one of the less touristy parts of the Wall: Mutianyu. After arrival we bought cable-car tickets up to the Wall and toboggan tickets back down. Francesca had told me on several occasions how Anthony had gone by himself without her knowledge, leaving her the boring cable-car ride back down. She was bent on trying the toboggan herself now as well!
But before I tell you about our experience at the Wall, here’s some background information from the Lonely Planet: “The ‘original’ wall was begun over 2000 years ago during the Qin dynasty (221-207 BC), when China was unified under Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Separate wall that had been constructed by independent kingdoms had been constructed to keep out marauding nomads were linked together. The effort required hundreds of thousands of workers – many of whom were political prisoners – and 10 years of hard labor under General Meng Tian. […]
The wall never really did perform its function as impenetrable line of defense. As Genghis Khan supposedly said, “The strength of a wall depends on the courage of those that defend it.” Sentries could be bribed. However, it did work very well as a kind of elevated highway, transporting people and equipment across mountainous terrain. The wall was largely forgotten after [the Manchu armies imposed over two and a half centuries of foreign rule over China]. Lengthy sections of it have returned to dust and the wall might have disappeared entirely had it not been rescued by the tourist industry.”
After a bit of confusion about which cable-car to take Francesca and I headed up for our personal encounter with the Great Wall of China. A mere 3 kilometers (of a total of over 6000 kilometers) of Wall loomed in the distance, as other visitors tobogganed down below. It was quite impressive to see the giant stone structure appear in the distance. We arrived at the top around noon and had roughly 2 hours of Wallking (he he) to do.
Francesca and I decided to turn left, where the longer part of the still standing remains of the wall were. Francesca and I immediately spotted the first Ming-dynasty guard tower. The amount of tourists was very manageable and we managed to get a good number of pictures without others in it. For about one hour we took pictures and walked – mostly down – towards more towers and wall in the distance. Around 1:00 PM we realized we had to turn back, since the return would be mostly uphill. It was quite a sweat-fest, but luckily some hawkers had made their way up the Wall as well, selling overpriced water and ice cream. Needless to say, we had to buy some, but the ice water made sure we survived the heat.
Around 1:30 PM Francesca and I made it back to the starting point. The tobogganing track beckoned below us. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with tickets for the cool way down. Furthermore, some kid had apparently fallen and dislocated his knee. It slowed the whole process down even more. Some medics were standing around, but didn’t seem to be doing too much. We couldn’t see a way they were going to get the kid down either, since he wouldn’t fit on the cable-car. Perhaps they should’ve slid him down the toboggan track…
After a good 15 minutes of waiting Francesca and I finally got to go! We sat down, pulled our brakes up and raced off. Well, I wanted to stay with Francesca to take a video of her, but lost a lot of speed doing so. The track was actually quite long, taking a good 5 minutes to descend. I would say it’s definitely recommendable for those with the tiniest hunch for adrenaline.
At 2:00 PM lunchtime arrived. We were not sure what to expect from a tourist restaurant so close to the Wall, but we can honestly say we were pleasantly surprised. The staff filled the Lazy Susan with sliced potatoes, omelet, chicken & vegetables, tofu, eggplant, Chinese cabbage and of course rice. Francesca loved the chicken; whilst I thought the eggplant and tofu (why does nobody like tofu!) were successful dishes.
The long drive back to Beijing was halted around 3:30 when our guide pointed out the 2008 Olympic Swimming Pool and Center in the distance. The mandatory pictures were taken and the drive continued. 15 minutes later the Silk Museum became our next exciting adventure. There were some pictures of foreign dignitaries in silk outfits, as well as a hands-on explanation of the silk-making process. Of course they tried to sell us large silk blankets afterwards… We snuck away and waited for the rest of the group to catch up.
Just after 4:00 PM the Dr. Tea Teahouse opened its doors for us (and group after group of other tourists). We were led into a little room, where they left us high and dry for about 20 minutes before someone finally came in to unveil the mysteries of tea. Trying the different teas was nice, but we’d already heard all of it before. After the mandatory 40 minutes were over our group headed back to the van. The guide had a ‘surprise’ in mind: a free massage. Not feeling much for 5 minutes of free foot massage followed by 30 minutes of trying to sell us more massages Francesca and I asked to be dropped off at the nearest subway station.
A tradition we’ve tried to uphold for hosts that we stay with for a longer period of time is making our famous pasta for them. Here’s Francesca description of the rest of the evening: “We decided to head to the grocery store, which in itself proved to be a bit of an adventure. There was only one little wall for Western food which we couldn’t find until the end of our shopping experience. That evening we joined Kevin at home for dinner. He had invited a few of his friends over and some of them spoke a bit of English so we had some nice conversation. Kevin and his buddies spent a lot of time cooking the chicken and other meat skewers, along with a bunch of other snacks they set out on the table. There was fruit, some interesting bread and veggies. I wasn’t too hungry but Henk made me a sandwich later from the roasted chicken we bought that really filled me up. Yum!”
Before we went to bed we worked on our plans for the mandatory border crossing which lay ahead of us. We had both thought we could just cross the border to Mongolia, come back in and get the second entry of our double entry visa started. In part, this was true. Sadly, it was only true for holders of American passports… I had to get myself a Mongolian visa. It being a Saturday the consulate wouldn’t reopen until Monday. Just our luck… We did read on the embassy’s website they’d have same-day visas. We decided to book a flight to Erlian – a Chinese city on the border with Mongolia – for Tuesday.
The 25th of July was our first quiet day in weeks. Francesca was feeling a little sick, but the chicken sandwiches I made her got her feeling a lot better. We watched some movies and worked on our plans for the second half of our visa. That evening Kevin invited some of his friends over for dinner. Francesca still wasn’t feeling the greatest, so I went down and prepared our pasta. It was not easy cooking with a very limited supply of pots and pans, but in the end everything got done and food was served family style. It was funny to see Kevin’s and his friends attacking our food with chopsticks, whilst we stuck to much more comfortable forks. We got compliments for our creation from Kevin, as well as his friends, but the best one came from one of the young kids who tried our sauce and exclaimed a loud ‘YUM!’
Sadly, horror struck that night as the power went off… It was too late to go anywhere and Kevin could only find out that some construction workers had done damage to the cables nearby. They expected the power to be back ‘soon.’ Francesca and I slept an extremely uncomfortable night in the heat, whilst being eaten alive by an army of mosquitoes. To make matters worse, Francesca had gotten more sick and felt too horrible to do anything on the 26th.
That Monday I went out by myself to get my visa for Mongolia sorted. The Lonely Planet had directions listed, which I followed to the letter. Unfortunately those letters didn’t get me to the Mongolian Consulate... After passing several Eastern European embassies guarded by unfriendly Chinese guards I finally found the queue for the Mongolian shack. And when I say shack, I really mean shack. There was one tiny building with one open window and one employee who calmly handled all the requests. Of course, there was quite a line. I grabbed an application form, grabbed for my pen and noticed it had exploded in my pants. Great, hands and leg covered in ink. What else could possibly go wrong? I borrowed a pen, filled out the form and waited. After roughly 60 minutes in the heat it was my turn and my form was taken. I got my receipt back, which I read on the spot. It said: pick up on the 27th. No way! I turned to the lady and pleaded for the same-day service. I pleaded, I begged, I offered extra money; nothing worked. There was only one thing to do: leave and find another solution.
I called Francesca, told her the bad news and discussed the options. We knew that leaving one day later would mean we’d overstay our visa by one day. Reports online had told us that this could lead to serious problems, fines and even arrests in some cases. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about yet! Luckily we’d also read you can avoid all of this by going to a police station or the entry/exit bureau and tell them our plight. If our story would be good enough we’d get a temporary extension and we’d avoid trouble with the Chinese law. We had no choice but to face just that.
My trouble weren’t quite over though. Since the Chinese government restricts internet usage so much finding an internet cafe turned out to be a bigger problem than I thought. Luckily Francesca reminded me hotels usually have business rooms. I spotted a big hotel in the distance and went inside. I quickly looked up Travelzen’s phone number and logged off again. I then called Travelzen to change the date of our ticket, which they did for free. Finally, one thing that went right that day. I had to go to the Bank of China to pay for my visa, which took another 30 minutes of patient waiting and thumb twiddling. I eventually managed to pay, got on the train and returned to a still sick Francesca, which was only made worse by the lack of A/C. Furthermore, Kevin would be working late that day and said he wouldn’t return until 11:00 PM.
By that time Francesca and I had decided to go to bed. Sleep, however, was not part of that deal. We’d killed most mosquitoes, but the heat was too draining to actually get any shut-eye. We decided to call every hostel and hotel in the Lonely Planet to see if any of them had availability for 2 nights. Finally, after a dozen calls one said yes. I packed our bags in the dark – I think we only lost 1 sock – and called Kevin to help us get a taxi to said hotel. We both felt bad we had to leave him in such a rush, without a proper goodbye, but we really couldn’t risk Francesca not getting better.
We arrived at the Qingzhuyuan hotel well past midnight. Not surprisingly, our troubles were still not over. I couldn’t produce my passport since the Mongolian consulate was holding it. Furthermore, they wouldn’t let us stay at all at first, since our visas would technically be up that day. I gave them copies of my passport and visa on a USB-stick, which helped. After some pleading we were allowed to stay for one night. We slept quite decently and woke up a tiny bit refreshed the next morning.
The staff would not let us extend for one more night unless we went to the police station for a special extension. We promised we’d go right after our free breakfast. Still, they wouldn’t let us leave our bags in the room. I had to pack them and move them to their storage room. After the free breakfast (which I wasn’t going to miss out on) Francesca and I walked to the police station. Surprise! Nobody there spoke English. Another foreigner with some Chinese skills helped us, but the lady seemed entirely daft, spending all of her time talking to us in Chinese and pointing at Francesca’s passport.
There was no way we were going to get help here. The entry/exit bureau was our last hope for clemency. Fearing we’d run out of time we took a taxi there and headed inside. First, we tried the counter for people that’d overstayed their visas. The reply was that they couldn’t do anything for us. The lady advised us to just go to the airport and pay the fee. She was kind enough to call the hotel for us, but the staff wouldn’t believe her and said we needed the paperwork. Sigh… The lady did tell us there was another window where we could ask for help. I stood in line, put on my most apologetic face and explained the situation to another lady. Her stone-cold answer: “If you overstay you visa you are illegal. You must not break law.” I told her we understood that, and that we were worried about it too. I told her we’d leave one day late, that we would pay any fines, but that we just needed a hotel for the night. She not only flat-out refused to call the hotel; she just turned away from me and walked off. How rude…
Francesca and I had no other choice but to go back to the hotel and hope they’d give us some leeway. Our hopes weren’t terribly high and our thoughts were confirmed at arrival. No room for us. I talked to one of the nicer staff members, hoping they’d at least let us stay the day, so we could go to the airport late at night. Miraculously, that was okay, as long as we also ate some food there. Francesca and I installed ourselves on a comfortable couch, finally being able to sit for a while. I ordered Francesca a club sandwich, whilst I had to leave to pick up my visa.
I left early to make sure I’d be there on time. You never know what tricks these people might pull! A long queue awaited me at the consulate. Worried that I’d gotten the time wrong I asked around. I found out everybody was queuing for visa extensions. The pick-up window hadn’t opened yet. In my head I wished them all good luck, and patiently waited for the window to open. Surprisingly, it opened a little earlier than expected and I got my visa quickly (after shamelessly skipping the queue – serves them right). Ah, the relief when I saw the shiny new 30 Day Mongolian visa in my passport.
In the meantime, Francesca had worked on her posts. On the way back to the hotel I took some pictures of lovely Beijing and its infrastructure, as well as the neighborhood we were in. We’d read and heard that we were actually in a pretty neat ‘hutong.’ I finally had time to look around and found some cool architecture to snap a few shots of. Francesca and I sat around for a while watching Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen (not recommendable!). Dinnertime came and we ordered a plate of spaghetti, a fruit salad and some garlic bread. We talked about our plans and Francesca told me she didn’t entirely like my plan of heading straight to airport that night.
After the very mediocre food I had a look around at some of the hotels nearby and found a stale and slightly dodgy hotel not too far away. I sat around for over half an hour whilst the staff seemed to calculate the days on our visa, pointed at the dates, ran off with our passports, not returning for 5 minutes (got me worried!) and finally accepted our money. I ran back to Francesca and moved the bags to our mini-room. We headed to bed as early as we could to ease the pain of the 5:00 AM alarm the next morning.
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