Day 5: Beijing – Miyun: First Day on the Bikes

Miyun, 19/9/2005 at 20:15

For the first time on our holidy we went for a long ride on the bikes: from Beijing to Miyun !

Everybody looked a lot at us: Two Europeans in tight cycling outfits. We even kept our jackets on because it was a cloudy day and a bit chilly at times. The first part of our trip went through Beijing and basically we experienced cars going slower because the drivers needed to watch us, shout at us, and honk at us. Very busy streets so far. We’re still in flat country, but tomorrow we go into the hills and will have the first views of THE GREAT WALL ! Yiiiihaaaa!!!!

We’ve been eating along the streets, which was the best food so far, and the post cards we brought with pictures from the Netherlands were being passed around the entire restaurant to great entertainment for everyone there. Basically it works like this: We have a small Dutch-Chinese dictionary that we flip out when we need to order something. It doesn’t make sense to see the menu because out of Beijing it’s ALL in Chinese, and the restaurant staff seems to understand NO English at all. But with hands and feet we get along quite well.

Today we’ll sleep in a fine hotel with no warm water and the reception doesn’t understand any English either, but are very friendly. We get to hear loooooooooooooong stories in Chinese and they (also here at the Internet cafe) write everything down for us in Chinese characters……… but finally we get to what we want and everything turns out well. Oh, and they charge nothing for hotels, food, and Internet outside of Beijing. VERY agreeable prices !!

PS.: Eating with chopsticks is rapidly improving. After a bad chopstick day yesterday today has been super.