Loco

Imagine if you will a reckless umbrella user. You know the kind; lacking in spatial awareness, prone to abrupt changes of direction, definitely one to avoid on the pavement if you hold your eyesight in high regard. Certainly on a rainy day in London this kind of person can prove hazardous, and may warrant a little fancy footwork on your behalf.

If you were to multiply this hazard, by say…around 17 million, make each offender roughly 5ft 4 inches – the mean height of people in China, and coincidentally the height at which my eyeballs reside on my face – then you’ve got yourself into a world of full blown jeopardy.  Welcome to Beijing.

To be blunt China is grossly over populated. With 1.3 billion people theirs makes up almost 20% of the population of the entire world! There are 17 million in Beijing alone, and about 3.5 million of them ride the underground on a daily basis. This makes for some delightful face squashing on trains, widespread chaos at anything of interest and frenzied jostling on the pavement. Statistics are one thing, but in reality this is terrifying, especially since almost everyone is staring at you and may or may not want to eat your dog! Add to this the threat of umbrellas, parasols, and tour groups with matching caps and telescopic camera lenses and you’re into a new realm of danger.

Jokes aside, Beijing is in many ways a fantastic city. It is a hot bed of tourist sights. From Tiananmen Square where nothing of historical interest took place in 1989 (no comment), to the Mausoleum where Chinese tourists fight tooth and nail for a peek at the former tyrant. There’s plenty to see and do, so long as you don’t mind the CCTV. On the other hand it is busy, crowded, noisy and smoggy. You can forget a tuk-tuk accident in Thailand, a moped collision in Vietnam, or even a drunken rope swing incident in Laos, the biggest threat to your health in Asia – as far as my small experience goes – is that you will be trampled to death by a group of colour coordinated human sheep outside a Beijing tourist attraction, or cough out your lungs. Nothing major.

Katie Melua tells us there are 9 million bicycles in Beijing. Now doesn’t that sound romantic? Lots of cyclists winding between ancient pagodas and lakes overgrown with Bamboo, maybe the odd Giant Panda lazing in the shade. Ah-hem…what about the cars Miss Melua? And the 6 lane motorways, the concrete, and the tenement blocks and ‘Beijing Lung’; what about the buses, taxis, and mopeds? Noise pollution, air pollution, space pollution…did I mention 17 million reckless umbrella users? If this kind of overpopulation is the future you can count me out. Someone’s going to lose an eye…it’ll all end in tears.

Despite feeling the need to constantly repeat these age-old Dadisms, I’m not one to be easily dissuaded. And if four months of Asian adventures have taught me anything it’s how to use my elbows as weapons. So I fought through crowds, wore sunglasses as safety goggles, and trod on people’s toes as a pre-emptive strike. I was greatly rewarded for my efforts, and though I left Beijing a little bruised it was worth the effort. In the space of just a few days in the capital we saw Mao lying in State, entered the (formally) Forbidden City, cycled around a nice lake, impersonated Mongolian warriors at the Great Wall, ate some scorpions and took a bobsleigh down a mountain. What more could you possibly ask for?

It was a city that I loathed at the time, and if I’m truly honest I wouldn’t like to go back. But thanks to our old friend retrospect, it doesn’t seem so bad after all. I still shudder at the sight of tour groups, the guide gesticulating wildly with no concern for passing pedestrians, and I automatically shield my eyes when I spot anyone under six feet tall in command of an umbrella, but looking back it was just another notch on my travelling bedpost and all part of the China experience.

A brief jaunt to “nearby” Xian (600 miles or so) – pandas, a tandem bicycle, karaoke and an 8000 strong terracotta army – and it was almost time to leave the country. What awaited us was the most exciting part of our overland journey so far: Mongolia and the trans-Siberian railway. No more battling with the Chinese alphabet, no more “no chicken, pork or beef, I’m a vegetarian” noodle soup dance for Vicki, and most excitingly, no more huge crowds, and definitely no more umbrellas. On the other side of the border lay the Gobi desert: horses, goats, a barren landscapes and a nomadic population of less than 2 million people TOTAL. Bring it on.

Photos: Kate

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