bicrom abroad

somewhere between mist and smog

our final day in beijing was reserved for a mooch around the summer palace in the west of the city. as we crawled along the expressways heading west it became clear, for want of a less ironic word, that not even this far reach of beijing was spared from the cloying affliction of smog. it seemed, if anything, particularly bad, gloomily bearing down on the roads and obscuring the highrises on their peripheries. the complete lack of visibility made me fear that our day was going to be a bit of a flush, with the views over the kumning lake which are supposed to make the summer palace particularly enchanting shrouded away in a cloud of co2.
as it was, not even the smog and the teeming hordes, initially just as overbearing as at the forbidden city, could detract from the elegance of the place. as we walked in through the east gate i was a little concerned that we would be entirely swamped by matching hatted chinese tourists, but as we walked up a hill to the buddhist incense pagoda it became clear that the entire complex was dotted with various sidetrack and trails, with all the hopes of peace and intimacy which they suggested. these optional routes meant that it was possible, from time to time, to enjoy the landscape and the rickety wooden buildings in relative solitude as you chose a slightly quixotic rockstrewn path from a to b whilst everyone else stomped through c. this was in complete contrast to the forbidden city, which steered its entire flock of visitors largely down one route on which everyone constantly clumped together knocking into each other and their camera shots; the summer palace afforded a liberty to explore which we were able to exploit fully and consequently garner an impression of the peacefulness which the imperial court sought to find here. if anything i would say that it deserved far more time and attention than the frankly charmless forbidden city, feeling much more like a pleasure than a travelling chore. in these rarefied surroundings you could almost believe that the smog was actually nothing more than the soft radiance of mist rising up from the lake. well maybe with your eyes if not your lungs.
on a plane as i type this on my netbook to x'ian and the chicken rice has just arrived. as our tour gets properly whistlestop for a few days, with the next stop a certain terracotta army.

posted by bicrom @ 9:00 pm