The great fail: I didn't climb the Great Wall

One of the must-do things for first-timers to Beijing is a visit to this ancient wonder. Somehow I managed to miss out

By the time you read this, the column will have packed its bags and taken up a week's residence in Ho Chi Minh City, the last stage on my eventual return to London, where authoritative sources tell me it has been snowing, for heaven's sake.

But before I plunge into the anarchic Honda mayhem that is everyday life in downtown Saigon, a last look back at my three weeks in Beijing.

Before I go any further, a word on the naming of the former South Vietnamese capital.

Like many of my contemporaries, calling it Saigon is routine.

When the country was reunified in 1975, the Hanoi authorities renamed it Ho Chi Minh City, after the revered former leader of Vietnam's revolution. The problem is, the name Saigon wouldn't go away.

I can remember in the late 1980s being in cold, chilly Hanoi and hearing senior cadres talk wistfully about a planned trip down south to the warmth of Saigon - not Ho Chi Minh City.

Eventually, I asked a city official in the southern city why so many people still referred to Saigon, and what was official policy.

Well, he explained, the whole urban region around the city was renamed after Uncle Ho, but the central downtown region retained its old name of Saigon. Simple.

Anyway, back to Beijing.

Any first time visitor - and I'm one - will, when asked to name things to see in Beijing, come up with a list that includes the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, the winter and summer palaces, and the closest bit of the Great Wall.

Well, I blew it. Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, no problem.

But work and sheer bad planning on my part meant I failed to see the palaces or the Great Wall. I've always wanted to see the Great Wall, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world as far as I am concerned. I had planned a day off from meetings and editing to drive out to Badaling for the day.

Oh no, we won't, said my wife. You booked us to fly to Saigon that afternoon.

So no Great Wall for me this time round.

What I did manage to see on my one day of sightseeing simply underlined what a treasure trove this place is.

Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City take your breath away, and like India's Taj Mahal, you forget the milling crowds around you as you take it all in.

And I don't think I have experienced such peace as I found in Zhongshan Park, a former imperial garden that lies to the southwest of the Forbidden City.

Hordes of domestic Chinese tourists may have been thronging other parts of the area - I had read that the Forbidden City is the most-visited tourist attraction in the world, which didn't surprise me - but Zhongshan was a haven of peace, blissfully free of touts and people wanting to practice their English.

I'm no green-fingered gardener, as my wife will testify, but I was blown away by the peonies, tulips and the wisteria (why couldn't mine flourish like that?), and the chance to sit and take in the peace and colors.

Whatever else they did, the emperors of old China did themselves proud on the gardens front.

By the way, I wrote last week of how little I had been affected by Beijing's infamous pollution, and my colleagues' amused derision on hearing me tell my wife on the phone that it wasn't too bad.

Well, got that one wrong. For the last few days I've suffered from itchy eyes and a tickly throat.

Time for a change of air in Vietnam, where the controlled horn-blowing anarchy that is Saigon traffic makes Beijing look like a driver's paradise.

The author is managing editor of China Daily European Weekly, based in London.

Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com