The next day in Beijing, we did a tour of the back alleys and small streets of a much more improvished Beijing. This was undoubtedly my favorite tour of Beijing. This was “off the beaten path” so to speak. Locals here are impoverished and just try to get by, and you can tell by the way [...]
We got up early and met our tour guide for 7:50am. It was her and the driver and our first stop was Tianenmen Square. We had to go through a packed security check point, bags go through xrays and stern looking police officers shoved people through the line to keep it moving as tour guides [...]
Again, briefly: An amazing tour took us through dirty alleys, poor people’s street markets, boutique shopping, all on foot and taxi. The tour guide was very fluent in english, and we did not stop at any fake museums trying to sell us stuff. We also rode the subway and I cut the tour short to [...]
Internet is heavily monitored and censored in China so I will do the prudent thing and keep my mouth shut and give the coles notes: Everything was nice, cold, and the Great Wall of China was extremely impressive. Tomorrow we are doing a private guided tour of the back alleys of Old Beijing and I [...]
We left Kuala Lampur at around 5:30am. The large highways had very little traffic, and the taxi driver took advantage of this, speeding along at 130 to 140kph most of the way. When encountered with a red light, that wasn’t about to stop him. He drove over barriers, across the empty intersecting road, and back [...]
