I slept well, thanks to the air-conditioning, and being tired from the previous night on the street. The first task on 8th August was to find out if I still need a visa for Czechoslovakia. One of the 12 letters I had received in Beijing was from a Czech friend, Mirek, who had said I am most welcome to stay with them on my way through Eastern Europe. I rang the Czech embassy, and I was told that I was welcome in their country, and that unlike 5 years ago, I don’t now need a visa.

Next stop was the Polish embassy – I knew that I would need a visa for Poland, but compared with the USSR it was trivially easy. I just went in, filled in a form, they stamped my passport, I said “dziękuję bardzo” (one of the few Polish expressions that I remembered) and that was that.

The “Friendship Store” was nearby, selling imported goods with higher than normal prices (all in FEC rather than RMB). I ended up getting a packet of McVities Digestive biscuits – something I had missed a great deal! Back at the Long Tan hotel I met the Spaniards again, and had another “refresher course” in Spanish, before heading off to rent a bike for $0.50 per day. This one came with a padlock, so I’m more confident of keeping it overnight rather than re-renting each day.

I had another go at contacting Jim and Jen, but there was still no answer. Next task was to get the Mongolian visa. Ellen and Coen, the Dutch couple who I’d helped at the Soviet embassy, also needed a Mongolian visa (of course) and were also staying at the Long Tan, so we arranged to wake up early and go together to the Mongolian embassy, which we knew also required queueing.

Accordingly, on 9th August, Ellen, Coen, and I got up at 4:30 am, and headed to the embassy. We found that our early start had paid off and we were 2nd and 3rd in line. A Frenchman joined soon after and insisted that we start a written list – not a bad idea especially as the first person in the line was a local man clutching 5 passports who would presumably take more than his fair amount of time.

But it all worked out fine and within a few hours all 5 Europeans who had arrived early had our Mongolian visas. The visas were in the form of a sticker rather than a stamp.

Coen, Ellen and I then nervously made our way back to the Soviet embassy to pick up our transit visas. Having now obtained the Mongolian and Polish visas, everything now hinged upon being allowed into the USSR. Before going in, we went down the line and offered a couple who were a bit too far back (position 50 and 51) to be likely to get in that day, and offered to carry their passports in for them. They were also Dutch by coincidence. Inside there was a bit of a hassle – but we were able to get our all-important stamped Soviet transit permit, and lodge the applications for the Dutch couple.

Outside we were relieved to have the bureaucracy resolved, and the Dutch couple in the line were so grateful that they gave us a full bottle of Scotch whisky. I had lunch with Coen and Ellen and then we decided to head for the nearby Lama Temple, which was photogenic.

After that we caught the metro back to near Long Tan picked up our bikes and cycled to the hotel for bit of a rest. Some Germans had just arrived off the Trans Siberian and told us a bit more about what to expect. We then met Sue, the Canadian from the embassy queue, with some friends and after venturing to a vegetarian restaurant we got a bus to the Qiao Yuan hotel to meet another group for some beers. Getting back by bus didn’t seem possible. so we just walked, which took a while.

The next day, 10th August, I was up late, and then mid morning decided to walk the km or so to the Temple of Heaven.

This is a spectacular and well-known landmark in Beijing, but didn’t appear to have much explanation about what it was for, or any other details.

It was actually quite busy with Chinese tourists. This was the first time I had actually seen significant local tourism for a long time – perhaps since leaving Australia!

I carried on walking westwards until I reached Qiao Yuan hotel again. For all it’s unpleasantness, Qiao Yuan had a large number of backpackers staying there, and invariably there would be someone I knew from somewhere. I had lunch there and got talking to a couple of Brits who had witnessed an armed robbery at the Great Wall of China – this all sounded a bit scary.

I relaxed after lunch, being in no particular hurry to go anywhere. Three East Germans guys, who I remembered from Xiahe, showed up, along with a girl from Edinburgh. She announced that she was tired of roughing it and was in the process of a metamorphosis, changing from a backpacker to a more luxurious tourist.

Late afternoon I headed back to Long Tan, tried calling Jen and Jim, and this time was finally able to talk to Jen. She suggested we all meet for dinner later and gave me instructions about how to find their room once I reached the Beijing Foreign Language Teachers College.

At the end of the afternoon, I got on my 50 cent bike, and cycled first to Tiananmen Square which was looking suspiciously grey.

Sure enough the heavens opened when I was pedaled from the square down to the bus station. I had to shelter in the bike shed, which soon turned into a mini lake as the rain poured down. Finally after an hour, the rain eased and I was able to catch bus 101. I later had to change buses which was all rather confusing, but I figured it out eventually, found the school, walked to the correct building, and there were Jen and Jim to greet me.

We headed to a posh restaurant for a pizza. I mentioned some of the frustrations that I am feeling in China, and was told that what I reported is very typical, and that for most people it is not an easy country to spend a lot of time in. Jen told me that she also gets fed up with the spitting and the staring.

As a student of Chinese she finds it particularly frustrating that even thought she speaks reasonable Mandarin, most locals assume that nobody who doesn’t look Chinese can possibly speak it, and are shocked when they realise that a foreigner trying to talk to them. So they immediately start an embarrassed forced laugh, such that they don’t even notice Jen is speaking Chinese.

So the first thing Jen has to say is: “Listen to me! Listen to me! I’m speaking to you in Chinese!”… and then sees their bemusement turn to shock as they realise what’s happening. Only then will they make an attempt to listen to what she is saying and understand the words.

At the end of the evening I invested in a taxi to get me back to where I’d chained the bike up, and thus pedaled the last km to the hotel.

The next day, 11th August, I had decided to go the Forbidden City. Jim (who is just visiting his sister for a few weeks and is thus also a tourist) had said he might be there, but not to wait if he wasn’t there at the agreed time of 8:30 am. He wasn’t there, so I paid my 30 Yuan entrance fee and got an audio guide to tell me all about what I was seeing.

Rather than listen to the audio guide straight away I decide to walk quickly round taking photos before the place became too busy. I deliberately wandered where people were not, and soon found myself in little alleyways well away from other tourists. The northeast corner was almost entirely deserted.

Eventually I headed back to the entrance and started the audio guide. The narrator on the tape was the actor Peter Ustinov, who described everything in a very entertaining way, making fun of the pomposity of the emperors whenever possible.

The palace complex was visually very attractive. While not being overgrown, it wasn’t exactly being kept as the emperor might have demanded.

The authorities seemed to be keeping it clean and intact, but to perhaps give the impression of a ghost town rather than a luxurious palace complex that could be pressed back into service at some point. Perhaps the idea was to show the local population the injustice that has now been “corrected” by the “equality” of communism.

I’m sure that the authorities want to stress that the “Forbidden City”, which used to be off limits to everyone, is now wide open for all to see. The irony, of course, is that the “Great Hall of the People” – the large and imponent successor to the Forbidden City, as the seat of Chinese Government – is very much off limits to regular people.

After 2 hours listening to Peter Ustinov, I knew a lot more about the microclimate of pleasure that was the Forbidden City in the times of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and had heard as much about eunuchs and concubines as I really wanted to in one day!

In the afternoon I managed to get even more confused about Chinese history, with a visit to the History Museum. The problem with Chinese history as that there is such a lot of it – nearly 4000 years of continuous history, with a baffling lineup if 13 dynasties.

The Museum of the Revolution was very dull and I didn’t stay long. Back at the Long Tan hotel I found the Dutch couple who Coen, Ellen and I had helped when collecting our USSR transit visas, and went for a meal with them.

I then headed for bed with the idea of trying to go to see the Great Wall of China the next day.