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We skipped the spiced donkey and Pingyao dog on the menu in favour of some superb dumplings

The capital Peking Duck and 8,000 rooms

As a young boy growing up in London, I used to watch badly dubbed martial arts films and then wander the streets of Chinatown, exploring the exotic shops and restaurants. Two things I always wanted: a wok and a Chinese jacket. I have had numerous woks. A few decades later, my wife and I plopped on to the runway at Beijing International for a few days in the capital and the ancient town of Pingyao, in the Shanxi province. We were met by our driver and taken to a hotel just northeast of the Forbidden City.

The Red Capital Residence is a beautifully restored courtyard house about the size of a tennis court with just five guest rooms. Our tiny room contained a four-poster bed hung with silk our bags filled the rest of the space. After a wash and brush up, we took a short rickshaw ride to the Red Capital Club restaurant, located in a similar courtyard with a Chinese date tree elegantly draped overhead. The scrapbook-sized menu contained evocative descriptions of dishes favoured by various emperors and dignitaries.

We chose the Peking Duck, which originated in the court of Kublai Khan during the Yuan Dynasty and was a favourite of Ming Emperor Zhu Yuan Zhang who had the meaty ducks of Nanjing selected for palace palates.Õ A bowl of Monk's Meditation rice and Chinese tea helped things along. The duck was superb.

The following morning, we confused a taxi driver with homemade flashcards containing the words Forbidden City written in Chinese and English, but somehow we got the message across and arrived at the south entrance, to the delight of a few postcard and Rolex watch salesmen.

We purchased tickets and audio guides and entered the palace into the outer courtyard. The magnitude of the task ahead became apparent as we looked at some of the 800 buildings concealing 8,000 rooms. We were only going to scratch the surface. We made our way along the western edge of lavishly decorated, red and black buildings accompanied by our automatic audio guide.

Some of the buildings were wrapped in scaffolding undergoing frantic restoration for the anticipated Olympic rush next year (hint: donÕt go then), but everywhere is beautifully clean and well organised. We rested weary bones in a cafe near the northern gate before heading back to exit into Tiananmen Square, where the famous kite flyers appeared to be on a tea break.

Dinner plans that evening were hampered by poor guidebook maps and a policeman with no sense of location, but we stumbled upon a street bursting with restaurants nonetheless. The place was full of energy; bright lights, orange lanterns, chaotic traffic, bikes and scooters, and characters trying to entice us to eat. At one point a woman grabbed a fish from a tank, flung it on the pavement and began to beat it with the net. Can't say it wasnÕt fresh. In our chosen restaurant, we entertained a team of young waiters in pink silk jackets by using three words of Mandarin and international hand gestures. We were rewarded by hot and sour meat, mixed vegetables and eventually, after a bit of a linguistic trauma, plain rice. The bill was cheaper than you can imagine.

Before flying to Taiyuan the next day, I was dragged mercilessly around some of the trendy shops near the hotel. Two vast bowls of boiling soup later, we were on our way to the airport. Those chaps at Heathrow ought to come to Beijing International to see how a model airport is run. As I approached the lavatory, a gentleman in a white uniform gestured me into his beautifully maintained domain. He bowed elegantly as I exited.

Pingyao Spiced donkey and a walled city

Forty minutes after take off, we landed in Taiyuan to be greeted by a driver for the foggy, one-hour journey to Pingyao. Pingyao is an ancient walled city that in the Ming and Qing dynasties was China's financial capital. Locked in time, it was recently rediscovered and is now a Unesco World Heritage Site. As we approached the town,
the bicycle density increased and we became wedged in between the narrow, unlit walls of the town. We had to walk the last few metres to the hotel and as we turned the corner into the main street, we were presented with a stunning view of medieval shops
dominated by an ancient archway. The waft of barbecued something hit my nostrils. This was more like the image I had from those early-Seventies films.

In the Tian Yuan Kui Hotel, we were directed through courtyards to our spacious room, where I noted that we would not be short of electricity: the room had 42 sockets. During dinner we sat outside and absorbed the atmosphere, which amused the occasional local who would stop, examine our food, examine us, smile and walk on. Everyone was friendly.

The next morning, after showering with Chinese scraps removing and tickle prevented shower gelÕ, we explored some of Pingyao's sights, including the Confucian Temple, the Taoist Temple, the Southern Gate and the Ancient City Building, which provides a magnificent view over the city. The place feels like a living museum.

The following day started with a walk around the wall, starting from the Southern Gate. On our right, through the ramparts, we could see the busy streets of Pingyao clanking with bikes and car horns, while on our left there were rare signs of life: a woman
raking spices, orange corn cobs stacked on roofs and sad-faced cats and dogs tied to posts. Suddenly firecrackers popped over the centre of the town and hoards of energetic children filled the streets. At the North Gate we descended to explore the main street for lunch. We skipped the spiced donkey and Pingyao dog on the menu in favour of some superb dumplings and spicy noodles.

Our first glimpse of the Chinese countryside came on a drive to a local attraction, the Qiao family courtyard house, located about 20km north of Pingyao. In the grounds are six courtyards with over 300 rooms, which we toured in combat with Chinese groups led by young guides equipped with microphones to broadcast their high-pitched commentaries above those of the adjacent groups. The Qing dynasty buildings were well preserved, but some of the exhibits require attention before they are lost forever.
Emerging with headaches, we drove to the Shuanglin Temple, 7km southwest of Pingyao. Accompanied by considerably fewer tourists, we strolled round the musty buildings that were full of exquisite wooden and clay statues dating from the 12th to the 19th centuries. Some of the dust had been there since that time, too.

On our last day in Pingyao, I had an hour to kill with my camera before we departed for the airport in Taiyuan, which, once again, was superbly efficient. The gate opened exactly on time and the 737 turned at the end of the runway to the minute. In Beijing we were met by a small team of staff to drive us to our hotel.

The Great Wall

The Red Capital Ranch is located in the hills 60km northeast of Beijing and was created by the person behind the Red Capital Residence, where we stayed previously. Formerly a Qing dynasty hunting lodge, the private estate contains ten rooms nestled along a lake, between steep mountains, on an unrestored section of the Great Wall. As BeijingÕs first eco-tourism venture, the rooms were constructed by craftsman using local stone, recycled materials and relics. After a brief rest, we made our way along dimly lit paths to the restaurant to sample the cuisine. It did not disappoint. The wild fowl with almonds was sublime.

The next day we had planned to explore the wall. Although the beginning of a trail leading to the wall was marked near our room, it appeared to end at a terrace of chestnut trees, so we returned, somewhat disappointed, past spiders with bodies the size of grapes. After lunch, however, we climbed the wall on the opposite side of the valley, through one tower and on to a second. In the early evening, the humidity was relieved by heavy rain and lightning which lit up the valley. We took shelter in the restaurant with a Tibetan yak platter accompanied by yams with honey.

The following morning we took a 40-minute drive in the rain to one of the major tourist sections of restored wall at Mutianyu. By the time we reached the top of the cable car, the rain had stopped, leaving behind perfect conditions for walking. This section has been magnificently restored and we made our way through several towers, past small groups of differing nationalities. I spotted a chap running along the wall, his grey T-shirt soaked in sweat. He reached our tower, took a photo and was poised to move on. Timing each section?I enquired. Yah, zer is no gym in my hotel, he replied. Good enough reason.

Back at the hotel, the manager provided a Tibetan guide to lead me up the section of wall that we had failed to find the previous day. We reached the top and surveyed the ludicrously steep terrain (some of it 60-degree slopes) we had just climbed. Scrambling down again, I was only concerned at one point, when my mountain goat guide slipped on a section next to a 30-metre plummet.

BeijingTraffic, silk and the Olympics

The next day our flight back to Oman was scheduled to depart just after midnight, leaving us an entire day to further explore BeijingÕs sites. We drove in heavy traffic to the Summer Palace, where the imperial court used to go to escape the intense summer heat. We completed an exhausting circuit of temples and houses accompanied by flocks of multinational sheep in matching red hats and waistcoats.

With time to spare, our driver took us to the Olympic Stadium that next year will host the opening ceremony. Cars stopped in silly places in order for the occupants to take photos and get back in before being struck by oncoming traffic. It is a most impressive structure, but given the length of time it took us to travel the 10km from the Summer Palace, I wondered what these streets might look like next August when an extra 100,000 visitors descend.

Our last few hours were spent in Wangfujing Street, BeijingÕs Oxford Street. We looked with delight at the state-run silk shop, unable to resist the temptation to buy something that will end up in a drawer. The street also includes one of the best bookshops in the city, the Foreign Language Bookstore.
Sadly, we met our driver at the allotted time and crawled to the airport at a snail's pace. We checked in and went in search of the restaurants to find only a coffee shop, where a soggy chicken focaccia wrapped in sweaty clingfilm was consumed with disdain. But all was not lost. My cheeky request for an upgrade resulted in two business-class seats for the flight back to Dubai. The culinary dip took an upturn as dinner was served. After what seemed like a few minutes (but was in fact five hours), we raised our fully
reclining seats to the upright position for breakfast. On the final leg from Dubai to Muscat, I asked myself why I had not bought that Chinese jacket I guess I'll just have to go back.