The Ming Tombs, Beijing -Wed. 24th Oct 2007

Today was our coldest day yet. We all had the jackets and jeans on & it did not look like it was going to be such a good day. We were going to go to The Great Wall this morning but decided to change it to the afternoon when the weather and smog were expected to be better.

Instead in the morning we visited a jade factory (some of us did some big buying there) and then we visited the Ming Tombs.

We did not quite no what to expect of the tombs and were a little dissapointed that after we climbed right down a lot of stairs into the chambers there was not a lot there to see. All of the treasures and mummies had long been removed to other places. The rear chamber that originaly held the bodies and the jewellery were represented by red wooden boxes, the large ones being the coffins and the smaller boxes apparently held the treaures. There were various items on display along the way (photos attached) and traditionally money is left on the items (not really sure why - good luck perhaps or paying respect to the departed). They had huge big gates dividing the chambers & there was a huge amount of work put into constructing the tombs underground where they had been hidden for many years.


Images attached: Driving through Beijing; Beijing Highway; us at the Jade Factory; Street stalls in the parking area of the Ming Tombs; Entrance to the Ming Tombs; we all got to rub the nose for luck on the way in (Frank is captured here); Me being the tour leader for the moment; Guards parading through the grounds of the Ming Tombs; various photos of the trees in the garden - I was admiring the way they managed to get some of the trees to cross over each other & was amazed to find that some of the trees are made of concrete - manufactured to create a great garden image; a photo of a sign in the garden that said "Do not trample" & the area was mainly dirt with a little stubble of grass; some of the items on display with cash floating all over them; the red wooden boxes in the Rear Chamber; part of our group in the chambers.