Scintillating China

Dhanya Damodaran
Jan 6, 2020
4 min read

Updated: Jan 25, 2020

Visited in October 2013

Huānyíng lái dào zhōngguó!!

Our plan to explore the beautiful country of China was to Beijing and Guilin. We landed in Shanghai, but didn't explore the place, we boarded the SMT - Shanghai Maglev Train (magnetic levitation train) from the airport to the main train station. From there, we took the world's fastest passenger train to Beijing which speeds more than 300 km/h and covers 1200 km in just over 4 hours time!

Itineraray

1) Shanghai - Maglev followed by High Speed Train to Beijing

2) Beijing

3) Guilin

Day 1 in Beijing was to start with the visit to the wonder of the world - The Great Wall. We had hired a private taxi with guide for our Beijing trip and was quite a good decision to cover the major attractions in lesser time. On our morning stroll, we walked past the traditional Chinese houses known as Hutongs and little restaurants preparing breakfast eggs and steam cooked dumplings.

The Great Wall can be viewed from multiple sites near Beijing, we chose Mutianyu and climbed on the cable car to reach the top of the wonder. Its always better to explore the Great Wall early in the morning to beat both the crowd and the mid day sun. It was a very pleasant experience to walk on the grayish black wall which stood tall with pride and abundance of history on each of its stones and watch towers. We heard about the purpose of building the wall by the Chinese Emperors and was truly a refresher of our childhood history classes :)

After lunch, we headed to the Summer Palace Complex. The Longevity Hill is very famous here and the Chinese style garden and landscaping adds a lot to the beauty of the entire area. A boat ride to conclude the trip in the warmth of the golden setting sun was a delightful experience for us.

View the slideshow below

From the palace, we ldrove back to Beijing city to the famous Red Theatre to watch the Kung Fu Show. This was a ballet kind of performance by artists on a big stage and was indeed interesting. The story portrayed Chun Yi, a young Chinese boy who wished to learn Kung Fu and became a maestro. I would strongly recommend the show as it was really worth the time and money. We can also click photos after the show with the artists.

Day 2 morning was dedicated to explore the famous Tienanmen Square and the majestic Forbidden City. Tienanmen Square - The Gate of Heavenly Peace separates the Forbidden City from the main city. This place houses the mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Several of the important events in Chinese history took place in this square

Forbidden City - Majestic!! Any tourist would be spellbound with its grandeur and traditional Chinese architectural marvel. You would need 3-4 hours to cover this place to some level of satisfaction. A lot of palaces, halls, gates, monuments, gardens to see inside the sprawling complex.This palace complex was built during the Ming Dynasty and since then the Imperial residence for the Chinese Emperors.

Later we drove to the Temple of Heaven. On the way to this multi storeyed blue roofed temple, we can see a lot of locals engaged in traditional Chinese games. We also dressed up as Chinese Emperor, Empress and Prince here.

We then headed to the Zoo,only to see the Giant Panda and it was so lovely to see them eating bamboo shoots all the time.

Later, we moved to the traditional Chinese Tea House for a lovely tea ceremony and we tasted several varieties of Chinese herbal tea.

We bid adieu to Beijing and flew to the lovely town of Guilin - surrounded by rivers, lakes and most beautifully the karst mountains.We enjoyed our day 4 stay in Guilin as we thoroughly loved the natural beauty and was carried away with the tranquility of this lovely peaceful country side. To add to all this, it was drizzling and was such a wonderful feel. We visited the parks, palaces, Elephant Hill and most importantly the beautiful Reed Flute Cave - a limestone cave with beautiful stalactite formations. The evening was dedicated to a lovely dance show at a theater and was enjoyable.

On Day 5 we experienced the natural beauty of Guilin and visited the Yangshuo County, visited a village, did some shopping and cruised through the Li river to view the lovely karst mountains of Guilin.

We had a very interesting experience in several places we visited in China; young girls, middle aged women and boys were very interested to come over and take pictures with us,especially with our little Son; and they were very curious and adored his big eyes!!

Not to forget our Chinese cuisine experience. Our lovely guides in China made sure we had the best Chinese vegetarian food! It cleared all the myths I had about China, that it would be difficult for a vegetarian to survive. The choice of veggies were so abundant that we ate to the fullest of our tummy's satisfaction:)