Enjoy the Cold While it Lasts

One of the problems with Beijing for visiting travellers is that it has too many things to see, especially for a casual Chinese history enthusiast like myself. There were still a few items on our must see list, and fear of guilt over not visiting them while we were in Beijing (when would we be here again?) initially overcame sightseeing fatigue. My own personal excitement over our next ‘sight’ also helped - the Forbidden City.



If you want a real taste of the power and might that China’s rulers wielded in the past, look no further than here. The entire complex conveys a grandeur and opulence unmatched by anything else I saw in China. Having recently been given a good scrub before the Olympics arrived, we were able to marvel at the halls and palaces in a pristine state, how they would have been kept when only the emperor, his eunuchs and concubines inhabited the area inside the complex walls.

Later that evening we stumbled upon a large night food market whilst looking to satisfy the hunger built up from exploring the forbidden city - one that had plenty of the more unusual Chinese delicacies. Fried centipede anyone? How about fried scorpion? Silkworms on a stick? Who would eat such things?




John ate them all.



Rising the next morning it was a case of another day, another unmissible sight to see - the Temple of Heaven. We were all getting tired of sightseeing at this stage, but it was nice to explore the park surrounding it’s main monuments, a refreshing break from the uniform drudgery of big city China. To be fair the Temple of Heaven complex itself is impressive, and perhaps we should have taken a break from sightseeing before this point, but we had already been in Beijing for almost a week and there was so much more of China to see!

In the two months since we left a chilly winter Ireland, my body seemed to have forgotten how to cope with cold weather (it was below ten degrees most days in Beijing). Perhaps all the rushing around to see things contributed too, but whatever it was, I had caught a cold. I spent the final day in Beijing feeling sorry for myself in the hostel. As our train departed from Beijing's station that night, I was able to comfort myself with the fact that this would be the coldest weather I’d see for at least a year and a half (or so I thought).

The Hotpot Incident

Having wasted most of our second day in China due to the antics of the night before, we decided to head out that night to try our first taste of authentic Chinese cuisine. Wandering aimlessly around the vicinity of the hostel, we ended up in the first place we saw that didn't look too expensive, but didn't look too dodgy hygiene wise either.

As soon as we entered the door heads turned, but we were used to that from India. What we weren't used to was the massive language barrier we now faced. No one in the restaurant had a word of English, and likewise none of us have a word of Mandarin, a fact that triggered incredulous laughter from the staff when they realised.



A paper menu with just Mandarin and checkboxes was placed in front of us. We were preparing to just pick things at random, when the waitress grabbed my Mandarin phrasebook (god bless it) off me. She then showed extremely commendable patience in going through the menu reader section, pointing out things to us which were on the menu, at which point we'd nod and smile or shake our heads. It was a slow ordering system, but it worked.



Sichuan province is famous throughout China (and the world they claim) for it's fiery cuisine, and the most famous Sichuan cuisine of all is huguo, or hotpot. This dining experience involves a big gas-heated cooking pot in the middle of the table, which is filled with a cooking oil of your choice (and plenty of hot chillies) and then into which you place your food to cook it. We had unwittingly walked into a hotpot restaurant, which I slowly realised as I watched our waitress pour in the oil and turn on the gas.



Relieved that we had overcome the initial ordering challenge, we now got ready for the next one: chopsticks. John and I had never used them before, ever, and Gearóid's experience was limited at best. After our first batch of food had stewed over in the pot long enough, we tried to retrieve it, with huge difficulty. Still hungover from the night before, my brain was wondering what the hell was going on. It felt so alien, eating with them. Still, we all just about managed, though there was some mess on the table towards the end of the meal.

Feeling proud of myself that I had almost survived my first restaurant experience in China, and hotpot at that, I gleefully picked away at what was left over in the pot. Accidentally eating one of the red hot chillies, I instinctively grabbed some of the lettuce that was still sitting on the tray of ordered food by our table to cool my mouth down.

After a bad night's sleep due to an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, the next morning I had to pull out of the trip to the Panda Breeding Centre – I was bound to the toilet for the second time on this trip. The moral of the story is: when having hotpot, absolutely everything must be cooked in the pot – even the fucking lettuce.

It Had to Happen Some Time

I was delighted to get through India without once suffering the dreaded Delhi belly. I was under the impression that once I got past there then the food would be cleaner and safer. I'm not sure where I got this impression from, because it was completely wrong. Nepal is even worse than India for food hygiene.

I'm sorry to say I have first hand experience. My time in Pokhara was ruined by illness. This really grated me, because when you have such a fantastic place outside your room door, it's incredibly frustrating to be stuck behind it. I spent a lot of time pointlessly pondering what had caused my uncomfortable state, but it really could have been anything. Poor Gearóid had a bad case of it too.

I hadn't felt well ever since the bus journey to Pokhara. The first night I just felt under the weather, the second day I felt the same. I even felt a little better after a relaxing kayaking session out on the lake. But the third day it was full on keep close to the bathroom sickness. By that stage I was sick of being sick. I had picked up some Indian strength prescription only pills over the counter (!) in Delhi (I had heard that Ireland doesn't have anything strong enough). They worked. Be careful what you eat in Nepal.

Is food hygiene as dodgy in China?.