On a Floating Bridge

more photos…
The approach to Beijing was at first characterised by slightly greener scrub with the first real trees for a long time. All the houses were a pale terracotta colour with the same colour tiled roofs. They were not an identifiably Chinese style in my mind, but they were all crammed together with only pedestrian alleyways, not roads between the higgledy-piggledy terraces. The fields are filled with wheat, the more common staple in Northern China. Many of the fields were being attended to by donkey-drawn carts.
The visibility is terrible.
There are enormous mountains less than a kilometre away from the track on what should be a fairly clear early autumn day. I can’t see them.
The reason may lie in the piles of coal lining the track for miles at a time. We’ve just passed our sixth coal power station since breakfast and its 11:30am.
Closer to Beijing, and we are darting in and out of tunnels on the side of a huge mountain overlooking a valley.

I parted ways with Sara, Daniel and Lorna, and was held prisoner by an extortionist cleverly disguised as a taxi driver. He was all smiles and happy while he was ripping me off though, even when I managed to bargained down to just 100 yuan for my 5km taxi ride (each km is supposed to be 2 yuan).
My new temporary residence was a lovely traditional courtyard hotel in the Hutong (narrow alleyways). I showered next to a bi-lingual sign that says “Notice for environmental protection in the green hotel” explaining “please turn down the sprinkler system as far as possible when you take a shower” and “the hotel suggests you use your own washing appliance [soap etc. I think], If you need to use the throw-away products please call the front desk”. And I’m not altogether surprised by it. In the first hotel I stayed in, in Mongolia, a similar sign in quad or quinti-lingual notices said words to the effect of ” Everyday, across the world, millions of gallons of water and chemical detergents are used to clean the sheets in hotels, leave this note on your pillow if you are happy to use your sheets again tomorrow” and similar note with “a towel on the rack means I’ll keep it ’til tomorrow, a towel on the floor means change it please. You decide”. Is this forward-thinking happening in hotels in the Western world? Or is Mongolia seriously leading the environmental movement in the hospitality industry?
In the evening I ate at a restaurant overlooking Qianhai lake and then wandered through the lantern-lit hutong where every restaurant was calling out to tempt you inside. As I walked through I could see glimpses of families sitting down to eat through open doorways and windows.