Welcome To China

Beijing

It's 31 and a half hours here from Ulan Bator on the train, quite a few of which were spent fannying around at the border. The first station into China was oddly playing very grand music over the loudspeaker and was decked out in heaps of bright red fairy lights. I would have got out to ask if I there were any dodgems or a helter skelter, but the stern looking soldiers patrolling up and down outside put me right off. A few yards further on and the train went straight into a shed. Now, stop me if this gets a bit too trainspottery, but the old Soviet Union and Mongolia use a different gauge to the rest of the world, so when you cross the border the train has to get lifted up so the bogies can be narrowed. This job was done by a far-too-large Communist workforce of men with baskets on their heads, although none of them seemed to be doing too much apart from arbitrarily pressing buttons and walking up and down. Eventually they decided to let us into the country which was a relief, I didn't much fancy spending the rest of my holiday stuck in the Gobi Desert.

Beijing is much more built up than I expected it to be. There are a lot of huge buildings in the centre, hotels, banks and the like. I suspect the difference between those with money and those many more people without is very wide here. But in the city centre at least there's no sign of the poverty, just big cars and lots of cash.