Impressions: Beijing and Xi'an

Beijing surprised me. Huge, modern city and very green. Wide, tree lined boulevards with many public parks and squares. Massive skyscrapers stretching beyond the horizon. The overriding impression, though, is the mass of humanity everywhere. Beijing's population is over 19 million. Traffic beyond description; all new cars, American, Japanese, and European cars with little room to maneuver and no room to park. Near our hotel were
dealerships for Maserati, Ferrari, Bentley, Mercedes, etc... A beautiful city.



Out of Cambodia en-route to Beijing we had to land in Xi'an to transfer from our plane to a chartered Shanghai Air 737 to continue the trip to Beijing. China recently imposed a rule that restricts private foreign aircraft to one landing and take off. Descending into Xi'an was surrealistic as we sunk into a soupy smog. I never dreamed air pollution could be so thick. Even inside the terminal building the air was hazy and smokey. I sent a blog posting about this from Beijing but the posting was censored. I later learned from our hosts in Beijing that monitoring and censoring Internet traffic was common (and necessary).

We stayed in another wonderful hotel, Beijing Raffles, just a block from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (more about them in another posting). It was a beautiful suite with a wonderful view of construction. There is construction everywhere across China. The growth rate in the major cities is such that there are hundreds of high rise (30 plus story) condominium projects under construction. On the out skirts of Beijing and Xi'an the high rise construction stretches as far as the eye can see. It doesn't look real. Of course, in Xi'an, you can only see several hundred yards due to the thick air pollution. It was eerie to drive through the smog and see the stacks and cooling towers of coal fired power plants belching acrid smoke into the air. In Xi'an, after seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors, we had another fabulous suite in a Sofitel inside the old city wall. While Beijing is a beautiful, fascinating city, Xi'an is more representative of China and was depressing due to the pollution and constant and continuous construction. Xi'an reminded us of a Mad Max movie, like the end of times. It felt good to board our plane and escape the pall.


Tiananmen Square

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Location:Agra, India