We had tried to visit China a few years ago but we had issues with the travel agency (UTO vacations)….sometimes a 10 day international tour for $299 isn’t real. We only had one wonder of the world left to visit and I was excited to see the “Great Wall”. We utilized a unique loophole in the Chinese travel rules to enter the country without a VISA. If you are in transit between two different countries, you can stay in China up to 10 days without a VISA. You are limited to areas you may visit and have to arrive from one Country and depart to a second 9different) country. In our case we arrived from India via Hong Kong and departed to Singapore.

There was a special counter for processing this exemption and it was not widely utilized. It worked extremely well and saved us the $400 in VISA fees. These rules are always changing, so check in advance. China is expanding the program to more areas and allowing up to 30 day stays beginning later in 2025. So this might be a good opportunity to make a visit.

We planned a three night stay in order to spend two days exploring Beijing and the Great Wall. I booked a small group two day tour (with no shopping) through Viator and chose a new Hilton Doubletree hotel as our three night residence. I took some funds out of an ATM at the airport (American credit cards won’t work here. The Chinese use phone apps Wechat and Alipay to make payments. Neither of these worked real well for us..so cash was the best option.)

As soon as I completed my ATM transaction, I was approached by a Taxi driver who offered to take us to our hotel for 200 Yuan or approximately $27. That was about twice what it should have been, but it was a 40 minute drive and we were tired after our overnight flight. The driver kept saying “USA is number One” and I didn’t feel comfortable with the situation. I kept the discussion upbeat and said how impressed we were with everything we had seen in China and how friendly everyone was.

The drive was pleasant enough and our hotel was very nice. The hotel price was quite reasonable as well. It was less than $100 per night. In China, English is not routinely spoken so the Google Translate app on our phone was indispensable. That evening we asked at the hotel about a grocery store and went and picked up some chips and soda at the store and opted to order a pizza for dinner.

It was a huge change coming to China from India. First, everything was clean and the streets were quiet. No one spoke English and everything was orderly. We never saw police, but I assumed that they were close nearby. I did notice that we we were being watched closely. There were camera’s everywhere. We never felt concerned to walk anywhere and we knew there was no crime….and I was not going to do anything stupid But it still was a little concerning that you were always being monitored.

The next thing we noticed was that most of our computer programs were blocked in China. I went as far as to ask the desk why their internet didn’t work and they sent an old Chinese housekeeper up to the room to help us. She didn’t speak English and just muddled some Chinese to us, shook her head, and left. I went down to the desk and the concierge explained that the internet was working just not “google” He recommended that we use TicToc instead. Its different there.

The concierge was a young man and his English wasn’t too bad. He agreed to order us a pizza (from his favorate restaurant) and send it to our room. I paid him and we headed upstairs. About 30 minutes later, our phone rang. A robotic voice talked cheerfully to us in Chinese….I hung up. Immediately, the phone rang again with the same cheerful and completely non-understandable message. This time, I went and opened the door. Outside was a 3 foot tall robot with a large smile pained on his face. While I stood there a panel opened on the robot revealing our “Dominoes” pizza. “Oh this is cool!”

After, I removed the pizza from the robot his mouth closed and he turned around and headed toward the elevator. The pizza was unique, and very good. It had been a long two days of travel and we headed to bed to get ready for our first of two days touring around Beijing.

Before we crashed, I tried to get the TV to work. There was a setting for English, but nothing seemed to work on the TV except some Chinese stations mostly showing local news. It was late anyway and I switched it off.

Our pick-up time was 7:00 AM. So after an exceptional breakfast, we headed down to the lobby to meet our driver. We were the first ones to be picked up and it tood another 90 minutes to get everyone together. Our first stop was Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City.

There were high levels of security at Tiananmen Square and large crowds. Our tour guide, Helen, advised us that they limited attendance to 80,000 a day and routinely had very large crowds. It took about an hour to get into the Square. As expected, there was no mention of the protests back in 1989. Helen, spoke of the love the people have for Chairman Mao and how great of a leader he was. She had no knowledge of the millions that he killed during the “Cultural Revolution”. Of course, I wasn’t going to mention anything about it…I wanted to see the wall and leave China in a couple of days. In China, everything is watched and controlled. It was obvious that Helen had been well trained in the Chinese party line.

We walked across the Square and into the expansive “Forbidden City”. This was the Emperor’s home and was now a tourist destination. Some of the buildings were still used by the Government and this is where president Xi resides and conducts business. Helen told stories about the Emperors and the “Dragon Lady”, who control ed China for almost 50 years. It was all very interesting.

After leaving the Forbidden City we headed to the Great Wall. It was about a 90 minute drive. We made a quick stop for some food and arrived at the Great Wall around 3:00. The wall runs along the ridge of some very high hills. You can get to the wall by hiking, chair lift or cable car. Helen recommended the chair lift since most Chinese take the cable car and its more crowded. She commented that “most Chinese are scared of heights and don’t like chair lifts” Interesting I thought. You could either take the chair lift or a toboggan down from the wall. We took the chair lift.

We spent about an hour hiking along the great wall. It was impressive but very steep with lots of stairs to climb. It was more difficult than I expected…but we had already walked about 4 hours earler in the day.

I wanted to ride the toboggan off of the wall. It was an alpine coaster and looked like fun. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t allow anyone over 60 to ride? I guess 60 is considered “elderly” in China. I tried to convince the ride attendant that I was 55…but he didn’t buy it and wanted to see ouir passports. So, off we went to the chairlift.

The wall was definitely worth it! We got off the wall around 5:00 and headed by to Beijing. Unfortunately traffic was bad and we had to drop off all the others before we got back to our hotel. We arrived back at the hotel around 8:00.

It had been a long day and we opted to go to the restaurant and bar in the hotel. There was no one eating in the restaurant, so we ended up drinking some good local Chinese beer and eating peanuts and chips for dinner.

When we got back to the room, I decided to get the TV working. I had it set to English but the channels would not change. I assumed I would find something with English subtitles at least. I called the front desk and they said they would send someone up to see what the issue was. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door, when I answered it I found the same old Chinese Housekeeper from the night before. She came in and picked up the remote and changed the language to Chinese. The TV immediately came to life….there is no English on the TV here. I thanked her (in Chinese), she showed no response (just shook her head) and left. But did leave us two bottles of water. I flipped through the TV channels. There were several local news stations and several educational chanels, some old movies and some sitcoms. No violence, nothing even slightly objectional…..or interesting. I turned the TV off.

The following morning, I went down to the gym to work out. As I went trough the hotel, I noted how many cameras were visible. Everything was being monitored. In the gym, I got on the eliptical and began my workout. After about 20 minutes, I noticed a man in a suit outside the gym door watching me. I thought he was going to come in and say something to me but he just took a picture of me on the machine and left.

We had another great breakfast and met our driver in the lobby at 7:00. Like before we needed to pick up other tourists and we got to our first spot around 8:30.

This was a visit to an old neighborhood (Hutong) of Beijing and included a tour of the area in a rickshaw. It was very pleasant, and we had an opportunity to go into one of the local houses, which was approved to host our visit. After a few other stops in the area, which were well staged for tourists we headed to the Lama temple.

We had passed the Lama temple several times the previous day, picking up and dropping off people, so I recognized it when we arrived. The temple was very old with lots of Buddhas. The incense was thick and the place was packed. In front of one of the statues, Reva and I posed for Helen to take our picture. While she was taking our picture, a man in a uniform with the number 49 on his back, bent down next to Her and took our picture as well. Afterward, I asked Helen what that was about. She said that she hadn’t noticed and it was probably just someone wanting a picture for an advertisement. (Yeah….right.)

Our next stop was the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was outside of the City, very nice but also very crowded. Crowds seen to be a trend in Beijing. There was a good deal of walking and one individual who joined us was on crutches and using a wheelchair…that didn’t work well. Here we learned more about the Dragon Lady and enjoyed a very nice…but long walk.

Our last stop was at the Temple of the Sun, which was back in the city and near our hotel. In China, you don’t get to climb many things. So this place was very boring. In the Forbidden Palace, the Summer Palace and elsewhere, we saw lots of young girls dressed up in ancient Chinese costumes and posing for pictures. It was pretty funny watching these teenage girls doing glamour shots of themselves all dressed up.

We were lucky and got dropped off first this time and were back at the hotel closer to 6:00. We opted to go our and have Chinese KFC for our last night in country. The next morning. our cab ride was uneventful and other than security wanting to confiscate my walking stick, we didn’t have any issues.

Overall, China was organized, clean and easy. However, as an American, the level of control exerted on the residents was hard to fathom. We value our freedoms greatly and it would be difficult to tolerate this level of control for long. However, we did appreciate the respect that was shown to us everywhere we visited. It may be worth another trip.