Beijing

When I got back to Beijing most of the people I had left there were still there waiting to find out if Datong was worth a visit. Definitely. I also met Avishai again and we arranged to go visit the Lama temple the next day and then take the taxi to the station together as we both had trains at the same time..him to Xian and me to TIBET:) So on our way to the Lama temple we got a little distracted. In the Hu Tong where our hostel is there are many people from the North west region of China..a mainly muslim region and since initially I couldn't get tickets to Lhasa I was going to go to this region. It seems a fascinating region and no one seems to be going there. In fact I still think I will be going there...I already have 2 good reasons to go there. I sound like most tourists...ironic..all of us want to see the touristic sights and yet I keep hearing 'which bit of the wall has no tourists so I can go there' or 'I wanna go where there are not hoards of tourists' and yet we all seem to end up in the same youth hostels following each other on the Backpackers TOURIST trail. But 'I' am going to be different:) hehe..I really wanna see Kashgar and see how China has kept buddhism and Islam alive together in such harmony. They have just built a new railway there so I should get there before all the tourists flock here...hehehe

Anyway, back to our detour...so this guy from Kashgar in our Hutong who was there every morning selling deliciously sweet melons..we asked him where he was from and where he went to pray and we ended up in a mosque where the Quran was translated from Arabic into chinese, A chinese muslim showed us around and asked Avishai to translate all the arabic on the walls. It was a great experience.

Two religious places in a day...the gods can't do anything else but look after me:) Next we took the subway and got off at the Lama temple. A beautiful temple where they practise Tibetan Buddhism. It is the largest and most perfectly preserved lamasery in present day China.

After seeing huge Buddha statues and just enjoying the calm and holy atmosphere of the temple where throngs of Buddhists came to light insence and say their prayers, we went out and walked around the Hutongs nearby. It was great to just sit in the compound of the temple and absorb the smells and sounds that just heal the soul.

We had a lovely lunch in a local restaurant, where as foreigners we got to sit in the air conditioned section, and then walked and walked just enjoying Beijing. We walked back to the hostel, had showers, talked a bit to Florence, who is constantly a wealth of helpful information, and then made our way to the train station.

As we stood their checking our tickets for the platforms we realised we were both on the same train. So I could delay this goodbye till the next morning.