Bisson in Beijing

Four weeks into my travels. Having a wheeze on the road. Quite literally, in fact, as the dust and smog in Beijing gets up one's nose and into one's chest. Mode of transport: the humble bike. Method of removing rogue pedestrians from my path: the humble bell. Hired this sit-up-and-beg bike with metal brakes yesterday from a shop next to my hostel in Beijing, located in one of the many hutongs (alleyways) that connect with the city's main streets. I've been used to hiring bikes from various places for the past few weeks. Bombing around towns and cities is the best way to see things. And I can make as many U-turns as I like - usually about 15 a day. My compass may have been made in Taiwan but it really works a treat- it has north, south, east and west and everything. 'kin marvellous. Not surprisingly I got a little saddle-sore after hurtling around the city of almost 15 million people. I've been walking like John Wayne ever since. Everyone knows that shorts are good in hot weather. But when it's hot and windy in Beijing I've found out that shorts and cycling are a particularly bad idea. (Which reminds me: I got a photo of a shop called Hot Wind yesterday. Phnaar, phnaar.) The galeforce winds ripped through the exposed streets picking up grit and sand and blasted my legs. Nice.

Biding my time here for a couple of days waiting for the Golden Week crowds of tourists to feck off before exploring the major sights (Forbidden City, Great Wall etc) It's a national holiday week for everyone, meaning that it's rammed everywhere you go. Tried to avoid being here so soon. For the past 3 weeks, I've been steadily moving north from Huizhou where I stayed with my sister. Went to a few big cities, including Nanjing the old capital and less than pretty. Polluted and ugly, in fact. Glad to see the back of that. En route to Beijing, I stopped off to hike Mt Tai Shan, one of 5 holy mountains in China. (16km round-trip up the 1545m mountain and involved climbing 6,000 steps). Not having used my step machine before my Cindy Crawford work-out video for some time, I was naturally caught a bit short... of breath. And I sweated like a Tony Hidson. Cracking views made it worthwhile.I'm taking to China. And the Chinese people are friendly and often chatty. In some places, they don't see too many whiteys and they're keen to practice their English. My awkward Chinglish raises plenty of smiles. Had an interesting night at the youth hostel in Nanjing. Shot some pool and played cards with this Chinese bloke, David. We played the card game Cheat - I taught him "I'll get my coat" and "You are taking the piss". He taught me in Chinese, you lucky dog and sons of bitches. He told me to me more like an English gentleman when playing pool, but I told him to get his coat to get on his bike and to get out of town! Funny chap - we are now in email contact.Been getting binged up in China, a bing being an eggy pancake type thing stuffed with spring onions, pasted with Chilli (it's chilli with everything here). 'kin splendid for brekkie or as a kebab replacement. In Suzhou, a city a few stops back, I couldn't help myself painting the town a shade of red 5 nights running accompanied by this guy from HK. I graced a club called Casablancas with my Bis flaps each night and ended up with a greasy bing in my hand in the wee hours of each. Which all sounds rather rude doesn't it. The first night I had a skirmish with a local lass. She seemed attracted to my monkey-like forays on the dancefloor. I was simply attracted to her rather fetching looks. And so it was that we communicated through close-dancing for hours, stopping quite frequently as I recall to pay lip service to each other - she didn't speak a word of English and didn't understand a word of my pidgeon Chinese. I offered a few "Piaoliangs" (beautiful) in her general direction but she either didn't hear them or, more probably, get it. It would have been smarter for me to have prefaced it with "You are...". Sadly, my Chinese vocab was limited at the time. And, of course, I was very drunk!

For the past few weeks I have mostly been eating eggs, pork, beef, noodles, rice, Chinese cabbage. But there are plenty of variations, most involving liberal amounts of chilli everywhere. Slowly getting used to ordering food. It can be a bit of a gamble though. A lot of the time I've been eating street food, which is very good indeed. You can see what's cooking - barbecued snacks ranging from chicken, frog and dog on skewers to lots of tofu. I may have had a Chihuaha dick dipped in chilli. I simply don't know.