Bei Dai He

So the beach trip was WONDERFUL!!! I didn’t realize how nice it would be to get away from the dust and pollution of the city. Bei Dai He is essentially a resort town for wealthy Chinese, Russians, and expats living in Beijing. The pace of life seems slower (e.g. cars actually slow down considerably when your cross the road) and people are more laid back.

Despite leaving Beijing at 10 a.m. we did not arrive at the beach near our hotel in Bei Dai He until 4pm. This was a reminder that everything in China takes time, primarily due to inefficiencies that have not been worked out yet. For instance, it is not possible to buy round trip train tickets in China. You get your one way ticket to your destination and once there, have to push and take great efforts to keep your place in line with the seemingly hundreds of Chinese people that are trying to buy their tickets back.

Once that was accomplished, we found two cabs that were able to take us to our hotel, the Friendship Hotel. An impressive looking three star hotel, the hotel staff nonetheless took an hour to check us in. Mostly, this involved finding our reservations, getting our passport information, and paying. . to top it off, you can’t even get the keys at the front desk but have to go to the individual building your room is in and put down a deposit for the key.




But finally finally we made it to the jam packed beach. The beach or sandy area was actually pretty small. Not realizing that parts of the beach were owned by different hotels and groups, we wandered over to a relatively uncrowded section. However, we were quickly told that that was the CCP’s private beach and we could not be there.

So we made our way back to the Friendship Hotel’s property and found a small spot that got a little bit of sun. Some of the group ventured out to swim or play Frisbee, but I just entertained myself by reading and taking photos. I must say, Chinese men enjoy pretty flashy and skimpy suits!!!

After the sun went down, the group headed back to the hotel to wash up for dinner. Because it started raining, we decided to go to a nearby restaurant rather than the more happening part of town. The restaurant was divey and the food was superb. We ordered fish, baby clams, fried eggplant, shrimp, tofu with duck eggs, lamb skewers, noodles, etc. With our bellies full and all of us tipsy from Great Wall wine, we decided to go to karaoke. It was great, we had an enormous room to ourselves and stayed up late dancing and singing along to the small selection of American songs they had.

The only bad part of the night occurred when we had to pay. The waitstaff tried to charge us around USD $120 after initially stating a 300 RMB (USD $38) cost for using the room. Mind you, we did incur some charges for water, fruit and snacks, and wine, but in no way did it sum up to $80. The staff claimed that we were charged more because they had to stay late to keep the place open. . . but the truth is we were the only customers, we were obviously foreigners, and they wanted to make us much money off of us as they could. In the end, we paid them the 300 RMB plus the amount for the food and drink we consumed. Nonetheless, it was still a great trip, we had a ton of fun, and came back slightly more tan and feeling mentally refreshed.