"Watch your step. Sit back and off we go," says a cheerful
tour leader as a dozen tricycles carrying two foreign tourists each set out on a
tour into the innermost parts of Beijing-its "hutongs", or laneways.
They were followed, in just a minute or two, by more international tourists
who hurried off coaches and onto the exotic sightseeing vehicles pedaled by men
in Chinese style jackets.
A tour into at least 20 laneways intertwined in the Shichahai area a few
blocks from the Forbidden City has topped the agenda of many international
tourists to Beijing. The trip, lasting 2.5 to three hours, costs 180 yuan (22.5
U.S. dollars) per person.
"This is something new. We never saw anything like this in Europe," said
Betto Veenenbos, a retiree from Holland, as he posed for one last photo with his
wife and the tricycle rider at the end of their hutong tour. "The lanes are so
clean, with no dirt or beggars. Every building has a long history behind it."
As first-time traveler to Beijing, Veenenbos said the
"jiaozi", or dumplings, they had for lunch in the traditional courtyard of a
native Beijing family were delicious. "It's nice to experience the life of the
commoners here."
Wouker Pietermaat, a 30-year-old soil analyst, said he would love to tour
around the hutongs again behind the handlebars of the tricycle. "But we're
staying in Beijing for only three days and will leave for Xi'an tomorrow."
Despite Beijing's fast evolution into a modern metropolis, nearly 2,000
hutongs have survived. Those in the Shichahai area are the best preserved and
have received nearly six million international tourists and 10 million domestic
ones since 1994. The 2,000 courtyards in Shichahai area are home to 64,800
Beijingers.
Beijing Hutong Tourist Agency is the first to promote hutong tours in 1994
and is receiving around 180,000 tourists a year.
"Business is good. Sometimes tourists are waiting even before our working
hours start at 8:00 a.m.," said a tricycle rider who declined to be named.
"It's more than a sightseeing tour," said the company's vice president Jing
Xueming. "By traveling to the innermost parts of Beijing, the visitors will
hopefully have a glimpse of Beijing's culture and the locals' life."
Jing's office is located right in the Shichahai area but he spends most of
his working hours on an Iveco that forever parks at the southern entrance of
Qianhai Xijie lane that is the starting point of the hutong tour. His 130-strong
tricycle fleet lines up neatly in its front.
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