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Home > Features > China
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Oliver Bennett's report on China
Verzonden op
20.03.07 |
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On my first trip to Beijing last year, I saw a city on the way up - in more ways than one. Everywhere, it seems, skyscrapers are spiralling as China's capital city squares up to its role as host to next year's Olympic Games. It's a frantic, giddy city - and utterly exciting.
Shortly, Beijing will be on everyone's lips. Already tourism is booming, and recently China rose to number four on the World Tourism Organisation's destination chart. Most visitors will take in Beijing's big hitting sights, and top among them is Tiananmen Square, epicentre of the People's Republic.
Could it really be 17 years since students took on tanks in this vast square? I looked around as red flags fluttered in the wind, and reflected on the enormity of China and its new position on the world stage.
On one side of the square is the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, where the embalmed leader still lies. On the other is the Forbidden City: one of the most astounding historical sites in the world, and where generations of rulers lived until 1924 when Pu Yi, 'The Last Emperor', left.
It's called 'Forbidden' because once commoners weren't allowed. Now it is full of tourists. But the site is so big that it absorbs the crowds and, amid the courtyards, palaces, gates and frescoed colonnades, you'll find places to fan away the muggy air.
The early emperors went to Beijing’s Summer Palace for respite. Here the imperial architecture is more leisurely, arranged around hills, gardens and the glorious Kunming Lake, where dragon-shaped boats glide past pagodas.
Blissful. But if there's only time for one monument, then it should be the Great Wall. My heart leapt at the first sight of it from the road. Like the pyramids, this remarkable monument, which tracks a mountainous 5,000km route, doesn't fail to elicit a gasp from the most cynical of travellers.
At teeming Badaling, a small town serving Great Wall tourism, the visitor runs the gauntlet of hawkers selling kites, silk, puppets. It's fun, but when you see the Great Wall's castellations snake into the distance, shopping seems a waste of time. I walked as far as I could along the wall, taking in the amazing views.
After Beijing, I flew to Hainan, an island in the south of China. Most visitors to China take in Beijing and Xian for the Terracotta Warriors - possibly a cruise on the Yangtze - and then conclude a culture-focussed trip. But increasing numbers are now going to this beach resort to find a new, resort-based China. It takes four hours to get from Beijing to Hainan's Yalong Beach's growing strip of hotels, including a Sheraton and a Marriott. Hainan's nickname is 'China's Hawaii', and after all that history, you deserve a tropical lounge.
After long childhood summers being dragged around Italian churches by his parents, Oliver Bennett studied art history before becoming a journalist. He writes newspaper and magazine features on many subjects including travel. Oliver lives in central London, has two children and finds it a little harder to get away these days - but always manages to find time for countries he hasn't visited before such as the People's Republic of China. "It's one of the fascinating and fastest-growing destinations in the world," says Oliver. "If you want to see the fruits of an ancient civilisation and experience a society undergoing the most astonishing change, you should definitely contemplate China."
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Oliver Bennett, Travel Writer
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