The rainbow never sets

wonder tempers flared. When my turn came: "O mei, o mei, É no É"

She couldn't sell me the tickets. We had to wait. So we waited, not knowing why or for what. Eventually we were escorted to the train, still without tickets, and allocated a sleeping compartment, where we could sit with four Chinese people, who were soon engrossed in a lively conversation, and we just sitting there being dumb. When the conductor came around we finally paid for our tickets. We could have saved ourselves a lot of hassle!

Our first job in Beijing was to book our train on the Trans Siberian Express. The five-day trip to Moscow via Mongolia was booked out, but we were lucky to get two seats (hard class sleeper) on the six-day trip, a Russian train, via Manchuria.

The next job was to find a hotel room. The Intourist Travel agent in Sydney had told us that it was not possible to get a room in Beijing for under $200 a night. We met an American couple who stayed at the Qiao Yuan for 34 yuan (about $15). We were re-assured, but felt we could afford to pay a bit more. The Tiantan Sports Hotel had a room for 68 yuan ($27), but a vacancy only for one night. We took it anyway, tomorrow was another day. We were overjoyed having a place to stay at this great country's Capital, and the assurance of a train ticket to Warsaw, via Moscow, for only 800 yuan each ($320). Our next worry would be to get a tourist visa for Moscow. That would have to wait till the next day, as the day we arrived in Beijing was a Sunday, and even in this industrious country, Sunday was a holiday.

We tried in vain to find the protestant church in Beijing. We would have loved to worship there, but it was not to be. The address we had was wrong, and no one else in the hotel knew where it was. We tried to phone the Rev. Kau, but we had the wrong number: "O mei, o mei!"

In the morning luck was again on our side. It took some negotiation, but I eventually persuaded the booking clerk to allow us to stay in the hotel until our departure on 4 July. Now to the Russian Embassy. We went for long bus trips and even longer walks, but it was hard to find. Eventually we got there, only to find again a large crowd of people. When our turn came, we were told that we couldn't have a tourist visa. This would take three weeks. So we settled for a transit visa with the assurance that Intourist would find us a hotel for the night. The connecting train to Warsaw would be leaving the following day later in the evening, giving us practically a whole day and a half in Moscow.

The search for the International Post Office was another wild goose chase. It had changed address since our edition of the Lonely Planet. But we found it eventually, and were rewarded by three letters, two under the letter "T" and one under "D". We were given three boxes full of 'post restante' letters, to find them by ourselves. Then we sent a telegram to Margie, who was waiting for it at Goldstone:

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