The Chinese New Year celebrations continued in Beijing with temple festivals and the odd sneaky firework despite the city-wide ban. I was told the streets were very quite by normal standards, although you could have fooled me. The main focus of the festivities seemed to be eating as much as possible and after several weeks of pickled cabbage in Russia and boiled horse in Mongolia, I was keen to join in. Luckily Lisa, my host in Beijing, and her friends, knew all the best places in town, and we conducted a systematic tour of every restaurant in Beijing.
With all the eating to be done it was a miracle I managed to find the time to go sightseeing. Even a visit to the beautiful Lama Temple ended with one of the monks presenting me with a massive kiwi fruit. The exact role of the kiwi fruit in Buddhist ritual is still something of a mystery to me. Whilst it failed to grant me enlightenment or inner calm it did make an excellent breakfast.
I spent several hours at the Temple of Heaven watching a spectacular New Year ceremony, one of several I accidentally stumbled into while travelling between restaurants. The dazzling costumes, colourful banners and the crash of gongs brought the temple alive. Only after the cordon was lifted and the tour groups surged forward was the usual atmosphere restored. Several straggling priests narrowly escaped a trampling.
The spirit of the sacred kiwi fruit had me meditating about lunch. Fortunately Lisa came to the rescue and I found myself drinking saki at the Australian Embassy with her friends Dan and Arnd. It wasn't exactly a scenario I'd anticipated. However I'd carried a neatly ironed shirt all the way from the UK for such a highly unlikely eventuality. Wearing combat trousers and hiking boots I tried my best to fit into my diplomatic surroundings. Unsurprisingly I was not offered a Ferrero Roche.
Dan took us to his favourite Peking duck restaurant. Luckily they had no live ducks running around, although the fish tanks were more of swimming menu rather than decoration. Dan ordered dish after dish of fantastic food until the duck itself arrived. It actually looked more like a shiny, orange football because the duck is pumped full of air. I assume they kill the duck first but that's a big assumption to make in China. By the time we left, I'd eaten so much that I knew how the duck must have felt. As I wondered if I would need to eat again before the next Chinese New Year, Lisa told me we'd been invited to her friend Keith's birthday dinner that evening.
Keith's party was at Made in China at the Hyatt, probably the best restaurant in Beijing. I should know because it feels like I've eaten at all of them. Keith and Boris sat either side of me and guided me through endless spectacular dishes of delicious food. It was all too good to miss and I had to try everything until I finally couldn't eat any more. It was then that they wheeled in a truly enormous Peking duck the size of a space hopper.
The following morning I decided a highly unseasonable trip to the Summer Palace would be the best way to avoid turning into a Peking duck myself. Given the weight I must have put on over the last few days it was probably a bit reckless to wander out across the ice on Kunming Lake, at the centre of the palace complex, but it was the best place to appreciate the glorious bridges, pavilions and temples that lined the shores. I also felt safer as the British has callously burned the whole area to the ground in the 19th century and I didn't fancy my chances of out-running a vengeful mob (or anything else) this particular morning.
With the New Year feasting coming to an end I decided to head west. Leaving the sophistication of the capital behind I travelled to Datong in a "hard seat" carriage. Six hours of "hard seat" is as painful as it sounds and the chain smoking and endless spitting of my fellow passengers hardly added to the experience.
Beyond the boundaries of Beijing a Westerner is a real novelty and my every move and grimace was watched by the entire carriage, while I tried to avoid being hit by spit or the children peeing on the floor. Datong looked magical in the darkness, lit by thousands of red New Year lanterns.
The dawn revealed Datong to be a city so ugly that not even its blind, sadistic, Maoist town planner could love it. In justification I was here to visit the Cloud Ridge Caves on the outskirts, which contain over 50,000 5th century Buddhist statues. Not even the town planner's decision to stick a coal mine on the other side of the valley could detract from the splendour of the caves. It was a relief that once inside the caves I couldn't see the coal mine or Datong, for that matter. As an added bonus the caves also provided shelter from the icy winds that blew straight down the valley from inner Mongolia.
I decided that Datong's second tourist attraction, its locomotive factory, was worth a miss. Perhaps because of the factory, the taxi driver understood my "Chuff! Chuff! Whoo! Whoo!" impression and took me to the train station. Once there, however, I chickened out of another stint of hard seat on the train and decided to take the bus south to Pingyao. On the down side, the bus had an even harder seat with a sharp metal spring digging into my back. On the plus side, I sat at the back, which made it harder for everyone to stare at me. They decided to concentrate on smoking and spitting instead.
Pingyao is a beautifully preserved town of ancient streets and temples surrounded by completely intact Ming dynasty walls. Arriving after dark it was clear that the demands of modern domestic tourism meant that Ming dynasty battlements weren't complete without thousands of coloured light bulbs and an illuminated statue of Donald Duck. It wasn't what I wanted to see, and not just because I'd seen enough duck to last a lifetime. Once inside the walls I found it easy to escape the kitsch and soak up the atmosphere of the streets blanketed in fresh snow. The Ming dynasty guesthouse for five pounds a night was a bit of a find as well.
After a day spent strolling among the fascinating building and temples of Pingyao, I headed for one of the restaurants near my guesthouse. Without Lisa to guide me I resorted to pointing to the pictures of the food on the wall although it wasn't entirely clear what the pictures represented. I was happily tucking into what had arrived from the kitchen, when the English-speaking manager of the guesthouse walked in. "This is good," I said "what is it?" He consulted the waitress. "Oh very good! Spicy dog meat!" he said, congratulating me on my choice. If you're wondering what dog tastes like, it is a lot better when you don't know what it is.
Being turned into hats in Russia and stir fry in China, I avoided the accusing looks of the domestic mutts being taken for a walk the following evening. As I sat in the station waiting for my train to Xi'an, I decided to play safe and buy a Chinese pot noodle after carefully checking the packaging for pictures of dogs, cats, ducks or giant pandas.
The whole waiting room watched the strange Westerner unpack a fork and start emptying the contents of the various sachets into the noodles. No one would have missed how the final sachet of chilli powder opened in a cloud that disappeared straight up that strange big Western nose of his. I sat there, eyes streaming, covered in chilli powder, soy sauce and noodles. Two hundred pairs of eyes continued to stare in amazement. A deathly silence descended on the waiting room, broken only by the occasional sound of spitting. I hurried for my train.
