Macduff Everton
Beijing

I was charmed by how friendly and helpful the people in Beijing were. I couldn’t speak their language, and not many people spoke English, so I was back to the basics of pointing and smiling. But whenever I smiled at someone, they would give me back this wonderful smile. A stranger’s smile really is a traveler’s treasure. I arrived on a cold, foggy fall day, and I immediately rented a bike and took off exploring. The sheer mass of traffic was astounding. At dusk there seemed to be a million bikes and not a single light.

As I came home at midnight on my bike, it started to snow. A cold wind was sweeping down from Siberia, stripping the leaves off the trees lining the street. The wind kept moving the piles of leaves like a dealer shuffling cards. The few cars and buses on the road slipped around on the slick pavement. I rode down the middle of the street, the fat snowflakes lit by the street lamps. It was a simple moment, like a scene composed by Fellini, that I will always associate with Beijing.

Macduff Everton is the photographer for The Cities of Ancient Mexico: Reconstructing a Lost World and a contributing editor of TRAVELER.