Through Southern China in 24 hrs.
Trip Start
May 30, 2005
1
3
9
Trip End
Jul 02, 2005
Where I stayed
It's a 24 hour train ride from Hong Kong to Beijing. The food was pretty good on the train, and everybody we met were really nice. Beijing was fantastic except for the smog. People complain about Houston and LA having bad smog, but they aint got nothing on Beijing. Id be afraid to breath the air if I was an olympic runner. It was so bad our third day there that we couldnt get many good pictures because the smog was to dense. But never-the-less Beijing is incredible. The food is great, the people are really friendly, and the Great Wall... need I say more. We hiked a ten km portion of the great wall to simatai, which was probably one of the most incredible things I have ever done. Plus the weather was perfect which was like sweet icing on the cake. We stayed at the red lantern house hostel and really couldnt have asked for a better place to stay. The beds were a little hard, but its pretty centrally located (at least for some things, Beijing is freakin huge) there was always hot water, internet, and the owners were great. Not to mention there are some pretty incredible and cheap hole in the wall restaurants very close. I would definately recomend this place to anyone travelling in Beijing. Get there before the olympics though, because I can almost guarantee that cheap travelling in Beijing wont last to much longer.
