Flight over the North Pole to Beijing

Unlike most people, I like long transcontinental flights. Being up there at 35,000 feet and watch the world slip by underneath is exiting to me. As a private pilot, I always enjoyed tracking the flight path and then mapping it on a globe. My globe at home is now criss-crossed with every transcontinental flights I ever took. Our flight to Beijing from Newark, New Jersey was unique in one sense. First, it is the only non-stop flight to Beijing from the New York area and covers a distance of 7800 miles in about 14 hours. In order to do this, they have to fly directly over the North Pole. My wife, Chandra seems to be quite uninterested that we are going to fly over the North Pole. It did not mean much to her. Another unique fact about this flight is, it never goes through night time and stays in bright sun shine all the way!

We boarded our Continental flight which departed promptly at 3:30 pm. Due to the long flight, we have upgraded our tickets to Business Class which, once you get used to, you will never fly in the Coach Class again! Throughout the flight, they kept us wined and dined on some of the best French wines and very good food. On the GPS flight monitor, I was watching our plane fly over Canada into the Hudson bay and then further north towards the North Pole. About 7 hours into the flight, we were finally over the North Pole. It was just a vast sheet of shimmering ice of the artic sea. I woke up Chandra to tell her that we were over the pole and she gave me a angry look and went back to sleep! We then crossed into Siberia in Russia,  over lake Baikal- the largest fresh water lake in the world, on towards Mongolia and then directly onto Beijing. As we crossed the international date line, we gained a day and landed in Beijing in the afternoon.

Until you reach China, you have no idea of how difficult it is to get around in China, if you do not speak Chinese. Our first experience at the airport was quite an eye opener for us. The airport like any other major international airport was very crowded and chaotic. We had booked our accommodation at the Great Wall Sheraton in the heart of Beijing. I was approached by a taxi driver who seems to speak a little broken English. I got carried away by this fact and asked him about how much it cost go to Sheraton. He pulled out an official looking price list, looked at it and said " It will cost you 300 Yuan ( about $38) in a meter taxi and I will take you there for 200." Being a habitual bargainer, I told him that I can pay only 150. After a little haggling he agreed for 160. So off we went in his unmetered taxi to the hotel. But something curious happened. Just before turning into the Hotel, he stopped the car and asked me if I could pay him now. I thought it was strange, but paid him any way. Then he pulled into the hotel, unloaded the luggage and took off. We were greeted by an English speaking concierge who guided us to the reception desk. Out of curiosity, I asked him about the metered taxi fare from the airport and guess what - he told me a metered taxi will cost 60 Yuan!  We retired to our room early as we were completely jet lagged after a very early dinner at the hotel dining room. The next day we were going on a guided tour of the famous great wall of china.