Beijing, 05/10/2005 at 23:00
Day 20: Shanhaiguan – Beijing: Back to the Base
As agreed our contact in the taxi underworld of Shanhaiguan had kept his word to arrive with a mini bus to bring us to Beijing. We hadto take the bikes partly apart, but at the end everything fitted and we were brought safely to Beijing. The driver apparently knew all the tricks in the book about avoiding road tolls, including changing license plates and driving through tolls so closely following cars in front of us, that the gates closed on top of the car (but did let it pass). Despite all of this we checked in at the hotel relatively early and spent the rest of the afternoon tourist shopping including having our own special “chop” made (due to illiteracy people earlier needed another form of signature than chinese letters. The chop would be a graphical signature in the form of a stamp made with red ink. ). In the evening we enjoyed a delicous Peking Duck dinner at the restaurant next to the hotel.