Well last day in Beijing before we set off by overnight sleeper at 8 pm heading for Xi’an. Spent the day at The Lama Temple, largest Buddhist Temple in Beijing. After that a trip to The Birds Nest and Cube of Olympic fame.
At the hotel we asked them to book us a taxi for the Station, no such luck, but they would help us with our luggage to the main road, hail a taxi and tell him where to take us. If you don’t speak Chinese you can’t say where you want to go, so they often write it for you and then you give it to the driver. They have done this for us for when we arrive at Xi’an in the morning. Our taxi trip was eventful, we siddled up to a bus, which took the wing mirror!! The taxi ride was about £3.80 for 45mins, pretty good. At Beijing West, we ran the gauntlet of ‘helpers’, climbed a flight of stairs with cases and met the rest of Beijing that we hadn’t met on the previous two days. Yes, the Chinese use trains!! We are now en route to Xi’an with a bijoux en suite room for two, just tasted CR (chinese rail)’s attempt at catering, you know, British Rail are quite good! Hopefully we’ll sleep our way through Xiang Province with the help of a couple of very large beers.
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