Great meal on Tuesday at the Passby and hey, I even resisted the urge to do an April Fools on here - couldn't think of one I hadn't done before...

Yesterday was our first real taste of Beijing. We had a bit of a lay-in before catching a cab to that tourist haunt - Tiananmen Square. Again, no tanks or demonstators so we carrie don our journey to the Forbidden City via a bank and about 35 subway tunnels. Bizarre Chinese moment number 1 occured at the entrance where a young couple who spoke no English came up to us motioning they wanted to take a photo, so I offered to take theirs but it soon became apparent they wanted us to be in their photo...surreal but obviously we agreed and gave a cheesy grin even Tony Blair would have been proud of, although at least mine was genuine.

The Forbidden City is the area of Beijing where the emporers, their concubines and their eunachs (interesting combination) used to live. It is basically a series of impressive, if austere, buildings that have been rebuilt on a about 5 occasions due to being made of wood. The Chinese do like smooking, fireworks, and inscense so I'm not surprised they burnt down to be honest. Rather than hire a guide we hired James Bond to show us round. Unfortunately it wasn't Sean Connery, or even Pierce Brosnan, but old 'eyebrow raiser' himself - Roger Moore (better than George Lazenby or Tim Dalton though I guess.....) As he's getting alittle old now we had to do with a tape recording but it was a fine accompanyment to the trip. The best bit was definitely when he described how one of the emporors 'ever-indulged' with the members of his harem and had a fatal heart-attack - I could see that eyebrow wiggling for all it's worth!! Met a nice Scottish guy and a couple of Aussies who, as expected, took the piss out of our inability to play any sport we've invented, I countered with my usual retort about ther Ashes - well at least you'l lnever get your hands on them, they're too fragile to travel...it always shuts 'em up for some reason.

On our way out of the Forbidden City we were accosted my a 50-something gent trying to get us on a trip to the Great Wall. After much haggling we agreed a price, but only if he threw in a couple of tombs too. Just under 30 quid for a full days excursion for tomorrow. We have chosen an area described by the lonely planet as 'a genuine wall experience' but also 'steep and crumbling'. should be fun. Following on from the Forbidden City we visited the Bell and Drum towers and had pretty good panoramic views of Bejing, unfortunately I wasn't allowed to play with the drums or the bells, spoilsports...

Dinner was after a couple of pints of Guiness (brewed in Malaysia bizarrely enough) in the most authentic Irish Bar this side of, er, Moscow. Hey it was so realistic there was even a drunk Irishman stood ordering whiskeys at the bar. We had pizza at a Belgian bar (?) before retiring for the evening.

So onto today which we hoped would surely be one of the highlights of our year - we were not to be let down. Despite our driver getting a parking ticket (for 20 quid meaning he'd make about a 10 quid loss on the day - oooops) he was resonably efficient although we arrived at the Wall via a couple of other places. One planned, one just utterly bizarre. The bizarre one was first - a kind of Madame Tussaud's (no we don't have wax fetishes) but this time there were loads of figures on display - none of them purporting to be real people either. There were about 15 exhibits depicting scenes from the last 800 years of Chinese history except none of them tallied up to the description. The big irony here, of course, is they looked more life-like than Uncle Ho earlier last week. It was also pretty bizarre to see a huge stuffed giraffe in one of them - probably slipped into the wrong exhibit - should have been at the nearby 'Noah's Ark' collection.

The Ming tomb was 'pleasant' enough, thank God they didn't see fit to display the remains at this mauseleum. He'd been dead 700 years. Then onward to the only man-made structure visible from space.

Richard Nixon sure was right (see previous post) although I will add more hyperbole by saying 'it is utterly amazing'!! Arriving at HuangHua we spent 2 hours climbing up 70 degree angles with no hand-rails, the best of it being we were the only tourists and even the postcard sellers left you alone to climb. It really is as it looks in all the pictures, in fact no, that's unfair, it is more spectacular, more scerene, yet it dominates the skyline and is incredibly demanding of those who choose to climb it. Thoroughly exhilerated we took tens of pictures before the hazardous descent and our trip back to the hotel. Just like visiting Angkor and the first time we had 30m visibility whilst diving it was a real defining moment on the trip for us and one that will live long in the memory.

This evening we were feeling pretty brave so we went for a Chinese in a Chinese. We had duck, pork, cabbage... in fact way too much for even me. The bill came to about 8 quid (hey I even asked for the bill in Mandarin and they understood me!!) and was as good as any Chinese food we've ever tasted. DELICIOUS!

We've had a few emails about this SARS thing so we thought it might be a good idea to contact our insurers to see what their take on it all is. We were mainly interested if they would pay out if we had to re-route if the government issued a health warning not to travel to Hong Kong or Gouangdong region (we fly back to here from Shanghai on 20/4 before flying out from HK the next day). The answer was a resounding 'no' and hey, if the government issue a travel warning and we decided to travel and we then require medical treatment they won't pay for that either. We are going to get to Zi'an and keep monitoring the situation but one of the things we are thinking about is cancelling our tickets from Shanghai and flying back to Chiang Mai from Xi'an to then go overland into southern Thailand. This would be a shame but if the government/foreign office does issue this warning we can't really risk going back. Also coupled with the fact that the Thai authorities are currently quarantining anyone with symptons from HK and making everyone from there wear masks (or face 6 months in jail - I kid you not!) we mayt have no options - I don't want to look like Michael Bloody Jackson.