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Since I have left Beijing, something unusual has been occurring...I am suffering from writer's block and I am displaying a weird lack of emotions. This is very strange as I have never experienced these kinds of feelings in 20 years of extensive travel. In short, China and especially Mongolia so far have failed to really touch my heart. |
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The sheer size of Beijing intimidated me from the onset. Tentacular,
gigantic, polluted, noisy, it emerges like some sort of monster grossly
spiked with skyscrapers and cranes.
I sought shelter and solitude in its hutongs, the colourful and tranquil last remnants of traditional neighboughood life. I could not get over the screaming paradox between an extremely modern and apparently opulent capital, Western style, and the very essence of its communist government. Beijingers, courteous and friendly, gave me the impression of being controlled however, like well oiled cogs of a mammoth machine. |
including the smog |
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Many incongruities were in evidence. For instance, it appeared anachronic to see in tomorrow's or (today's?) superpower men or women painstakingly mixing cement manually or building a wall, brick by brick with a hand tool. |
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Flag of China |
...Leaving China |
Flag of Mongolia |
4 diesels and about 14 cars |
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| Just the facts: Mongolia lies in central Asia between Siberia on the north and China on the south. Nomadic tribes that periodically plundered agriculturally based China from the west are recorded in Chinese history dating back more than 2,000 years. It was to protect China from these marauding peoples that the Great Wall was constructed around 200 B.C. The name Mongol comes from a small tribe whose leader, Ghengis Khan, began a conquest that would eventually encompass an enormous empire stretching from Asia to Europe, as far west as the Black Sea and as far south as India and the Himalayas. But by the 14th century, the kingdom was in serious decline, with invasions from a resurgent China and internal warfare. |
| Tomorrow...more Mongolia. Click to continue the journey... |
