Beijing in 1990


The trip to China in 1990 opened new horizons... it was my first such long overland travel, which showed that it is possible to just go off for months travelling the world. Three friends and me secured a very cheap ticket for the Trans-Siberian express in the last minute in December, as from the first of January next year these cheap deals between the former communist block countries would no longer exist.

A return ticket from Budapest, via Moscow, Beijing (Peking), and Shanghai, to Guangzhou (Canton) cost 3,500 HUF, which was, according to the official rate at the time, less than 60 USD - with black market rates probably around half. Plus two of us, from the four, never used the return ticket - we sold them in Guangzhou and carried on to Thailand, so the trip to China was actually free.

Beijing was strikingly modern even at that time, although you found quarters with tightly-packed tiny old houses. Many modern multi-storey apartment buildings did not have bathroom in the flats; there was a communal in front of them. It was still communist China, not today's one-party-capitalist, already quite developed, but still developing. A friend and I went first, with my other two skydiving friends arriving a week later, so we thought we have time to visit Xian to see the Terracotta Army, but then we decided to skip it and spend more time in and around Beijing - there is so much to see. All together my friend and I stayed in Beijing for about 8-9 days. (One day wasted, as we got drunk early in a restaurant next to our hotel.) Then two of my other friends joined, who travelled from Hungary and we carried on to Shanghai and Guangzhou together, where we finally split up. One of my skydiving friends went back a few years later and had learnt Chinese fluently, and works with Chinese people ever since. We all had a great time and the trip broadened our hozizons, but in her case it was a life changing experience.















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