28 Nov 06
Well, we think, that was a welcome bit of excitement on a day that was threatening to be a bit dull. And then we arrive at Badaling and the Great Wall of China, which rather moves the goalposts when it comes to defining 'excitement'. Have you been? It's amazing. No photo can do it justice. The scale of it, the ambition. Even before you climb it, it takes your breath away. The earliest bits date back to just before Christ, although the restored stretch here at Badaling was re-opened in 1957, just before the Beatles. It was built to protect the Chinese empire against the tribes from the north; its current job is attracting the tribes from the west.
The final stretch, from Badaling to Beijing, is just 50 miles, run as a convoy led by the police who sometimes stop the traffic for us but sometimes - ho ho - don't. Beijing's wide roads are overloaded with vehicles, including the first locally owned E-Classes we've seen in China. Beijing feels like a more natural mix of old and new, planned and evolved, than Lanzhou, Wuhai or Hohhot. There's the Forbidden City, but there's also McDonald's and KFC and a huge upmarket mall under the Grand Hyatt.
Long before we park in Beijing the adventure has finished and DaimlerChrysler's corporate trumpet-blowing has taken over: we're all one big happy global family, the world united by its enthusiasm for personal mobility. That sense of pampered semi-detachment, of trundling along in tourist autopilot, makes it all the more shocking when suddenly there, on your left, is the infamous Tiananmen Square - a reminder that, for all the amazing experiences we've had, there's more to life than driving cars.
Feature: Paris to Beijing: the final reckoning
