My new taxi driver friend was happy to deliver Carly and me to the airport again (3 runs, 60,000 in his pocket). It was chaos, people everywhere, entry to the international check-in restricted. The reason? Air China canceled yesterday's flight, then delayed today's flight, and now passengers from both those flights were trying to get onto the single afternoon flight. I did my best Mongolian bullying impersonation and got us access to the check-in area to try to talk to the Air China agent. There was a queue of about 20 people trying to do the same thing. Queue behaviour depended on the nationality of the passenger – Australian's and Brits lined up neatly, Koreans too, Russians were a bit more pushy, Mongolians kept circling past us to “just look” in the door, and possibly dive in if they saw a space. Those of us standing started to share stories. I met several people who had been at the airport all the previous day. They even made it into the departure lounge, but then at 11:30pm Air China canceled the flight and sent them all back to hotels.
I confirmed through listening to conversations that there would be two flights today, an afternoon one and an evening one. We would be on the evening flight, as those who were left the previous day had priority. So I left the queue, trusting my travel agent to have made changes online. Carly and I waited and waited and waited. Finally our turn to check-in came. We went to the desk, smiled at the tired woman there and gave her our tickets. She looked at them and said, but you must change these to the new flights! I swallowed a big gulp of anger and walked with clear purpose back to the queue outside the Air China agent office. This time I channeled my inner Mongolian and calmly walked to the front of the line, looked casually inside, then slotted myself in a Michelle-shaped place behind the first person at the desk. No eye contact made with anyone, just focusing on being an immovable presence. A Mongolian woman walked in behind me and did the same thing, even managing to edge in front of me. I let her in, she was a professional. The guy behind the desk was being harassed by a Kazakh man who was on his way to Istanbul and had just discovered that he was going to have to spend two days in transit in Beijing. Understandably he was not a happy camper. When my turn came I looked the young guy in the eye and gave him a big smile and greeted him warmly. He took a big breath. I explained that I just needed two tickets changed to the next available flights and handed him my papers. In two minutes he had it done and returned the papers to me. He even updated the Thai Air flights in Bangkok. Later I discovered that one of us had been upgraded to business class – maybe it was the smile? I am adjusting the leg rest on my business class seat as I write, so I am glad indeed!
The flight arrived, we got on and arrived in Beijing without drama. Then it was time to find our free accommodation. By then we had made several acquaintances with other passengers – the Aussie coal miner who was returning to Perth for a break after his stint in a coal mine in Hovd, the young Chinese doctor who was returning home for a month after a month on-call at the OT mining site in the Gobi, the Australian boyfriend of a volunteer who had been checking out his girlfriend's life in Mongolia...Bonds had been created through this shared experience with people that I normally would not connect with. Hours standing in queues, straining for information, wondering about the future, had created connections that we all held onto as we shared stories or complained. Our sense of control had been hijacked by Air China and we were navigating what would happen next with each other for support. We milled around together in the arrival hall, looking for instructions. We were treated a bit like cattle, herded after the Air China duty manager through the airport and down in the car park, where we were squashed onto transit buses and taken to various hotels near the airport. On our bus was an Indian man who was on a consultancy with ADB in Mongolia to focus on solutions for clean air in the city in winter. He was experienced with Beijing, and commented that because we could see stars in the night sky the sky would be blue the following day. He advised us to get out of the hotel during our transit wait and see some sights. We got to the hotel, had our passports confiscated, enjoyed a hot shower and collapsed into hard, but clean, beds.
The next morning we missed breakfast by 10 minutes (we got there at 9:10am) but our ADB acquaintance from the night before was sitting at a table eating toast and fried egg. He introduced us to young Indian man who was looking to fill in the day with something interesting. We decided to try to find a taxi to take us to the subway (which we were assured was very easy to use) and then to Tienanmen Square. The staff at the transit hotel were clueless on how to help us. Taxi? Subway? So we walked out to the main road. In Beijing the airport is like many other cities, on the edge of town, so we found ourselves walking along a quiet tree-lined road. To our treeless Mongolian eyes it was lush and beautiful. Little electric motorbikes glided past us silently, the breeze gently blew the leaves in the trees, a few bicycle carts rolled past. It was quiet and uncrowded – not the Beijing I was expecting. We walked towards the busiest road and stood looking for a taxi. Being from Mongolia we were just kind of hopeful that we could get a car to stop – as in Mongolia any car can be a taxi. The road was a major one and the cars were racing past, completely uninterested in us. We stood there for a while, contemplating trying our luck on a bus, when a man in a nice sedan caught our eye. One of those with us was a Mongolian man with a few words of Mandarin. He did some negotiating and we found ourselves with a private car, driver and an itinerary. The plan was to drive into Tienanmen Square, take some pictures for an hour, find something to eat and then come back to the hotel. As we got into the car Carly commented that she hoped that we wouldn't be taken somewhere to harvest our kidneys....
Carly and I were joined on our little adventure by Raj, the Indian man we met over our missed breakfast. Raj has just finished nearly two years in Ulaanbaatar working on a software program set-up for Xac Bank (who also happen to be one of ADRA's major partners for our micro-finance program). We shared notes on the best places to eat Indian in UB (I say Hazara, he says Los Bandidos, we both agree that Deli Dharbar tastes not quite right). We made other small chit chat as we drove into the city. The sky was blue, there was no traffic congestion, the streets were clean, the modern buildings in the CBD were impressive, where was the Beijing I was expecting? Crowded? Polluted? Crazy? Perhaps all cities look this good on a sleepy summer Sunday under blue skies.
After about 40 minutes our driver pulled into the car park outside Raffles Hotel, very prestigious. We got out to walk. By now it was midday and scorching hot. The driver pulled a pale purple umbrella from the back of the car and gave it to Carly. We joined a small sea of umbrella's bobbing over the road, strictly controlled by handy traffic marshal’s to stop jay walking (UB needs something like that). We walked in the shade along the outside wall of what I think could be the Forbidden City. It felt very strange for me to be visiting somewhere I knew nothing about, had no map, and couldn't speak to the guide. Normally I travel with as much information as I can. As we got closer to the square we found ourselves in a bigger crowd. On the side of the foot path people were selling big wedges of freshly cut sweet melon and bottles of partially frozen water. We stepped out of the shade and into the blinding heat on the square. We joined Chinese and foreign tourists, all posing to take photos in front of the various sites of significance on the square (I will have to Google them later to find out what they were!). Our driver was taking his impromptu job very seriously, so we had to pose in various combinations in front of buildings and statues while he took many photos of us. Between us we had four cameras – my big SLR, my little point and shoot, Carly's point and shoot, and Raj's camera phone. So there was plenty of photo snapping. The activity on the square was similar to UB, so I spent my time trying to snap pictures of people doing their tourist thing.
When our hour was up we walked back to the car. I disappeared into Raffles Hotel, looking for an ATM, as so far we had done all this without any local currency. Inside the hotel was an oasis of cool luxury and I hoped my Australian visa card was up to the task of making me look like a well heeled traveler. We drove back out of the city again, hardly any traffic, through the trees and back to the hotel. We had decided to eat lunch at the hotel before Carly and I had to check in for our flight to Thailand. Raj joined us. By now it was 3pm and we were the only guests in the cavern-like pale apricot dining room (all the other transit guests would have eaten the free lunch provided between noon and 12:30). Navigating menus in foreign countries is always interesting, but lunch turned out to be fresh and tasty, either that or we were very hungry from no breakfast and tramping around Tienamen Square in the noon day sun. Our lunch time chat turned to more serious subjects – employment opportunities in India, career satisfaction versus just earning an income, whether Raj would chose his own wife or marry someone selected by his family, why Hindus did not eat beef and why I was vegetarian. Raj is 26, likes to smoke (even in the car!) and works in IT. Normally we would have no reason to talk, but here we were talking about big things over lunch, while three Chinese waiters hovered at the edge of our field of vision, ready to fill up our water glasses after we took a sip.
With lunch done there was just time to swap photographs from our various cameras, and swap facebook details. As Carly and I wheeled our suitcases down the dark, damp smelling corridor we passed Raj's room. His door was open and he was sitting at his laptop, going through the photos. We said genuine goodbyes, it had been a great day. Will we see each other again? Probably not. Do we know each other well? No, such a short time together is enough only for us to share what we are happy with about ourselves, a preferred identity. Will we remember our surprise transit in Beijing? Definitely.
