Amazing Ancient City of Pingyao
Trip Start
Dec 08, 2006
1
33
48
Trip End
Apr 27, 2007
Where I stayed
Pingyao, China
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Getting up, dressed and ready to all jump off our sleeper train at 6.30am was a military operation! But we managed it with a few others, arriving on a cold lonely platform.... Jack was not amused, not a morning person! As we headed towards the entrance of the walled ancient city of Pingyao we could not imagine the sight that was about to unfold. We felt as if we had gone back in time to ancient China, beautiful architecture, lanterns, temples, stall, restaurants, tea houses everything you could imagine. Our Guesthouse - Tian Yuan Kui was on the main street, we were welcomed into the warm comfort by a very friendly and helpful Johnathan & Rainbow. We were taken across the cold courtyard into our cosy old Chinese room, beautiful! All this was topped off with "real" coffee and pancakes for breakfast, bliss for all concerned.
Once fed we walked out for our initial taste of Pingyao, this really felt like a place people lived even though there are many Chinese tourists as well. We met many children and friendly locals. Abi, Imi & Jack had so many photos taken of them that after a while we had to resort to running away from a tour group!
We set about the sites with conviction (Steve & Karen!) - The Yingxun Gate, The Qinhan Gate,The Qingxugan Taoist Temple, The Confucius Temple, The Chenghuang Temple, The former Residence of Lei Livtai, The Ancient Government Building, The Rischengchang Remittance Bank, but we sadly missed the City Tower! As for the children they enjoyed the "doing" rather than the seeing, such as banging the drum and peeling the bell in the Confucius Temple, playing football with the local kids (& Jonathan!), walking along the top of the city wall and generally getting dirty in the coal dust!
The local food in Pingyao was stunning and was great to experience the regional dishes.
Finally, we have to thank Jonathan for securing us sleeper train tickets to Xi'an. We left for the station in yet another golf cart with our faxed copy of tickets in hand.....read on to see if we made it.....!!
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Just got this entry. Looks fab is there strange oriental facial hair going on? Endless patience and endurence- have fun see you not too far now Nicola