My some strange twist of fate and irony I find myself arriving at Beijing airport, under a huge storm cloud, which was actually meant to be the end of my trip! It's been an unusual detour via London to allow me to finish my Silk Road trip, but along the way I've picked up some cash and my brother and together we will make our way all the way to Kashgar (several thousand miles away) only to come all the way back here! We'll cover both the north and south Silk Road routes. Furthermore we only have 5 weeks to complete all of this! Still it makes for an interesting challenge and hopefully one which will still be overland unless time runs too low!

Arriving in a wet and humid Beijing was no fun at all. It's 31 degrees but feels like 45 and there's a blanket of humidity that makes you sweat bucket loads before you've even walked anywhere! Still we hopped on a bus to the centre and, slept most of the way. Our flight had been unbearbly long and now it was early in the morning in Beijing and therefore a whole day stretched in front of us. After a devacle trying to get a taxi driver to take us to our hotel which we had booked and paid for in advance, we were informed that actually there wasn't anny room at the inn. Instead we were transported 20 minutes to a hotel further south. The same thing had happened to a Japanese chap who had brought his bicycle with him to cycle roudn China. So we all crammed into the manager's car, bycicle, spare tyres, backpacks and all and headed for the rather smarter sister hotel.

Fortunately the fact that we'd been upgraded to a room that costs about 35 pounds when we'd only paid 12 was gratufying. It was 3pm by this time and we were tired and hot. We unpacked, took a shower and before we knew it, it was time to head out for supper. i was dreading the language difficulties as neither of us speak a word fo Chinese, but we som,ehow managed to order a decent and filling meal that we prayed wasn't dog's meat and actually tasted quite good! We returned to the hotel early and crashed, only to be woken by the old chestnut of a phonecall at 2am checking if wee needed a massage. I rudely told the lady to sod off and let us sleep, annoyed that the hotel had clearly given our number away.

We were woken the next day by the cleaner trying to force her way into our room, so we diecided it was best to get up and get moving. Our main job for the day was  to head to the tailor's and have a suit and some shirts made. Needless to say we ended up with several of each. I headed off after lunch for a meeting withthe Mercy Corps team here in China to learn more about the phenominal work the charity is doing in the southern provinces, before we met up again for an early supper and then headed to bed.

Beijing is a wired mix of the modern, noisy city with the traditional. It's bustling for sure and even though the street are several lanes wide, the traffic is constantly flowing. Everywhere it is trying to put up the impression that it is a modern city prepared to host the 2008 Olympic games. Posters adorn most public places reminding us of this fact. If it's not posters then statues have been erected and gardens planted to celebrate this fact. But walk a little way behind this facade and you still find the old old hutong alleyways where most of Beijing's residents live in small one-storey, crumbling houses. THey provide a peaceful haven for a few moments rest and reflection before exiting back onto another braod boulevard filled with traffic and shoppers. Sadly the government is doing its best to knock these down and build on top of them and it's not an uncommon sight to see whole areas reduced to rubble with some big contractor about to construct a glass monstrocity.

Nevertheless it's been an interesting introduction to the developed China. As we head further West it will be interesting to see how this changes. China officially has a GDP growth of 11%, but I suspect this is not the case in the more rural provinces. We'll see, but so far an exciting start. Oh, and having a Chinese takeaway for breakfast, lunch and supper is great...sure that novelty will wear off soon!