Day 56 to 58 : Beijing

High Point

After a frustrating 36 hours Jim Stevens and myself finally rocked into Beijing feeling pretty shabby, but were determined to push through. This was Beijing and we were finally on the road with FTFE!  This had been caused by a four hour flight delay and when we finally got away a “benign technical issue” forced the plane to turn around and circle the north sea for an hour dumping fuel before landing. Thankfully a few G&Ts and cold tomato soup had taken the edge off. Organised chaos ensued as accommodation was sought for 300+ and we finally got into a room at 4am to be up at 9am to learn our fate. We finally got away proper at 5pm!

Customs was surprisingly a formality and we jumped into a cab to the hotel passing the impressive Olympic Stadium en route. Thank you Ben Lloyd for the hand holding as I must confess my mandarin is a touch rusty! A super quick turnaround meant we were in Tiananmen Square to meet the Stage 2 crew at 12 noon GMT (and 17 minutes but whose counting) which was exactly 8 weeks since the launch! There was great rejoicing! Funnily enough to celebrate we went for a Chinese which reminded me of Chinatown in London but bigger.

Monday morning we were up bright and early for a whirlwind tour of the city. Lane Productions (the chaps filming a documentary about our expedition) had arranged a camera crew to follow us so the sight seeing was interspersed with some bits to camera. Like any self respecting westerner McD’s and Costa Coffee were frequented (we weren’t being uncultured, you cant grab a coffee anywhere else) as the temperature topped 35 degrees! Beijing really felt a modern bustling high rise city with a rich mix of modern and historic architecture. Of particular note were the CCTV Tower, Olympic stadium and Water Cube, Tiananmen Square and the forbidden city.

Being westerners and wearing our bright red FTFE t-shirts we really stood out and the locals were incredibly friendly and inquisitive and we were asked on countless occasions to be in photographs. Oh the fame.

For dinner we ate at in a Xinjiang Muslim restaurant in the heart of Beijing and said our final farewells to the Stage 2 crew.

Low Point

Missing Loved ones at home already and realising a Chinese SIM card was going to be our most precious piece of kit…………

Paul

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