Beijing, China - Experiencing the Best and Worst Day of my Life

Beijing, China – Experiencing the Best and Worst Day of my Life

By THE MEssy optimist

Two words. Urine. Puke. Yes. That’s right. One of the most incredible days of my life – ever – and I and my friend smelled of urine and puke. Another insane exaggeration from The Messy Optimist, you think? Hyperbolic, much, Roopa – you’re sniggering under your breath. For once, I wish I could tell you that this is from the feverish imagination of a creative writer. Alas! That ain’t so.

And it all started so well, too. When my friend and I set off to do the trifecta – The Great Wall, The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square – we had NO idea how the rest of the day would play out. When we left that morning from our hotel excitedly I remembered what I’d been telling myself almost my entire life – and that was, the day I went to The Great Wall in Beijing – it would be the BEST experience of my life.

And it was.

No question about it.

Taking in the sheer mastery of the place and the majestic nature of the wall – it was among the best days of my life. What I didn’t know then was that it would also be one of the worst days ever.

Let me back up.

Catching Up! Memories and Friendship

So, how did I even get to the Great Wall? A few years back one of my oldest friends had been working in Shanghai for a few months when I decided to up and pay her a quick visit there. We met in Shanghai after many, many years. Once we got caught up with life, children, divorce, moving to Shanghai for a year (hers), becoming a digital nomad (me) – we finally decided over the dal rice I’d made with Lijjat papad that we simply HAD to go see the Great Wall in Beijing.

Once the decision was made – we immediately booked tickets to Beijing and we left that very weekend.

Guys – you have to understand just how incredibly excited we were to get to The Great Wall. Like Angkor Vat – doing The Great Wall is the ultimate bucket list item for many of us and my friend and I were beyond excited to be privileged enough to get to see it.

Our plan was to do a complete three-day trip with a local guide who would take us all around Beijing, as well as spend a significant amount of time doing the main triumvirate – Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and The Great Wall. Once done with the Beijing trip – my friend would return to Shanghai while I would proceed to Hong Kong and Macau.

Arriving in Beijing itself was very interesting. We’re convinced that our taxi driver totally took us for a ride and fooled us into believing he didn’t understand what we were saying. He took us on a one-hour mini-trip around Beijing before he took us to our hotel, which, btw, was some ten minutes from the airport.

When we got off he continued to yell at us loudly in Mandarin. We figured he was telling us how much time he’d wasted finding the hotel and that we should probably pay him more money. Indeed, that’s exactly what he did and charged us much more than what the meter showed. By that time we were tired, hungry and mad as hell. So we literally scrounged up the exact amount it said on the meter, shoved it in his hand and sprinted to the reception at the hotel.

While we were definitely hassled at what had happened we were way too excited to care. We had our end game very clearly in sight. And that was to take in every bit of the wall when we were there.

Needless to say – the next morning we got up all gung-ho. We were doing the big three that day. Things were looking good. And as we made our way to Tiananmen Square first and The Forbidden City next – it was great – at first.

The Forbidden City

My very white Caucasian American friend started to get a bit antsy by the time we got to The Forbidden City. The thousands of people on that Sunday looked at her like she was like a mini-celebrity. Her extreme pale skin and red hair meant that people in China looked at her with something resembling awe and constantly wanted to touch her face, feel her skin and run their hands through her hair. Many also often stopped her and asked to take pictures/selfies with her. Initially, she was thrilled with all the attention (who wouldn’t be?) but after awhile it got exhausting for her.

In case you’re wondering if they did the same to me? Nope. In my subsequent years in China I noticed one thing – when I’m by myself, a brown-skinned Indian woman – Chinese people paid me a lot of attention. But if I was with a white person I was less than an ant. So no. No one really gave me a second look that day.

But the day was still awesome. My friend and and I were having a LOT of fun. Our guide said that we should do The Great Wall in the early afternoon and spend the entire evening there. But before we left for the Wall, it was noon and our driver/guide told us it was time for lunch and took us to this really nice restaurant.

While at the restaurant my friend – lets call her Jane (for privacy reasons) – needed to use the bathroom while I looked around the buffet for…something, ANYTHING. Like, literally, anything. Being a vegetarian meant that while traveling around east Asia – my only hope really were maybe three celery sticks, two slices of tomato and two slices of cucumber. You think I jest – but not really. It really was very slim pickings for me. Bored of eating food even cows would reject – I grabbed myself a free coke and waited for my friend to return.

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5 minutes. 10. 15. 20…no sign of her.

It then occurred to me that maybe something was up and maybe I should check on her? I know…this tube light blinked pretty late that day. I quickly made my way to the bathroom and it was a good thing I did. Just as I walked inside the ladies room I saw a very red-faced and teary-eyed friend of mine slowly edge her way out of one of the stalls. Like I said – her face was red, she was crying and she had a bump on her forehead. I ran to her worried AF and asked her what happened?

“It’s the bloody SQUAT TOILET!” She yelled. “That’s what happened! What the fuck is that thing?”

At this point I need to let you guys know that in the four months my friend had lived in Shanghai these squat toilets were her bête noire. She often complained about them bitterly and wanted to know how anyone could possibly hope to do their business (especially number 2) when you squat down in that position? What if it takes long? How the fuck can we squat so long? I haven’t exercised in many years and I’m not in good shape, she’d rage.

Well…what she prayed would never happen happened. Apparently she tried to squat but she couldn’t spread her legs as wide as the squat toilet needed her to. So she tilted in one direction and put her weight on one leg. And before she could say hello the other one other slipped and well…

So – squatting did not succeed. Instead, slipping down, hurting her head (among other things) and smelling of urine did.

I consoled her, walked her to the wash basin and cleaned her up a bit and took her back to the buffet where we tried to get past what had happened and tried to eat some lunch.

It was a very quiet lunch but once over, we soon got our joie de vivre back. Our excitement was off the charts now. After all…

WE WERE GOING TO THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!

The Great Wall of China

FYI – in case any of you are wondering how I did, how I REALLY did with all the attention that Jane received that morning – rest assured. I took over the post-lunch session!

On our way to The Wall was the first time it happened.

I puked.

I puked my lunch.

The second time was as soon as we got out of the taxi and got tickets to go up the wall. More lunch…

The third time – I willed myself not to barf on The Wall itself and succeeded but just as soon as we came back down – yours truly did the needful. Breakfast, this time (I guess…who knows?).

Times 4 (on our way to the Tea Tasting place) and 5 (on our way back to the hotel).

By this time I had no idea what was even left inside of me.

Oh, the day had started off so well. It started with excitement about Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and The Great Wall. By the time the afternoon rolled – all our conversations were about smelling of urine and puke.

In case you wonder if we enjoyed ourselves atop The Great Wall – DO NOT FEAR.

HOW COULD WE NOT?

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How could we not? The Great Wall is one of the single-most breathtaking and awe-inspiring sights I’ve ever been privileged to see. Even as our guide continued with his explanations and descriptions of the wall and the history behind it – none of it registered.

My friend and I stood there – shell-shocked for 30 minutes and just took in the spectacular vision in front of us. This Wall – this Great Wall – that you can see from space, we were there! We were touching the sides of the actual wall.

Over the next few hours – between stinking of urine and puke – we spent time just walking up and down the Wall (there are extremely steep parts that we had to be careful with) and just wondering at our incredible luck that we got to see this great wonder of the world in person. Just how lucky were we, we kept asking ourselves. We were so awestruck that we decided that we needed to definitively establish our presence there forever.

NO.

We didn’t do anything stupid like mark it with pen or use a knife to carve our names like Romeo and Juliet. I had a small passport-size picture and my friend had her journalist visiting card and on the back of both we wrote, “We were here!” and snuck them inside one of the nooks on the Wall and left.

After we were done for the day and returned to our hotel the young woman at the desk smiled and asked us how the day went.

“It was great!” We chorused. “We stink of urine and puke but other than that – the day itself was the best ever!”

And it was.

Check out what else you can do when you’re in Beijing:

https://www.goatsontheroad.com/things-to-do-in-beijing/

https://www.chinahighlights.com/beijing/top-things-to-do.htm