by Alan Goodwin

Created on: August 04, 2009   Last Updated: August 05, 2009

Walking to the gate in Heathrow's shiny new Terminal 5, I decided to test out the rumour that all airline staff get emotional when you tell them it's your Honeymoon, go all gooey, throw away their professional integrity and upgrade you to turn left with the celebrities and politicians grandkids when boarding the plane, not turn right with the cheap seats.

It's a lie. I asked everyone. I even ambush-questioned the pilot of our BA flight.

Face to face as he walked past me in the departure lounge. Apparently approaching pilots isn't fashionable these days, and although somewhat startled, he still said no. 9 hours in Economy it was then, and more comfortable than a police cell at least.

Our destination was Beijing, the first stop on a tour of China that would last 10 days, taking in Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai and Hong Kong before heading for an 8 day stay in the Sabah region of Borneo.

After landing at 6am, doing that bit on the air bridge getting off the plane where you look through the window and state loudly "I'm in China!" just to remind everyone what they already know, we set foot into the shiniest building I've ever seen.

Beijing's new Terminal 3 building was extraordinary. We were distracted somewhat from the shininess by the thermal imaging camera checking us for swine flu, before having our eyes scanned, for reasons that were unclear, but I was in China, so I obliged. I might now be officially a communist, but I'm a healthy one with a body temperature deemed "acceptable" and, visas stamped, we were on a proper Chinese motorway with our guide, Jean Wang, and our driver Mr Wan.

It quickly became apparent that driving in Beijing is not like driving anywhere else I've seen.
It genuinely appears to be entirely voluntary if you want to use any form of signal or obey any form of electrical 3 coloured lighting system.
A four lane highway is wide enough for 6 cars to fit across, so behold, a man in a battered Nissan begins to undertake us on the hard shoulder whilst a 70mph demonstration of the chaos theory in action folds out ahead.

Amazingly, we didn't arrive at our hotel in the back of an ambulance but in one big piece, with a slightly sweatier me and a grinning Mr Wan. We would be staying in the Beijing Novotel, and our 13th floor room gave us views of the CCTV Tower and a strange linked tower dubbed "The trousers" by witty and imaginative locals.

We were quickly back downstairs to take advantage of our hotels central location, and no sooner had we set out

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