Xian-Pingyao

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So our sleeper train tickets which were classed as "hard sleeper" proved to be just that, "hard to sleep".
Due to the chinese peoples constant hunt for hot water to drink or to use for their pot noodles , their walking up and down made it nigh on impossible to sleep before "lights out" and after that the guy in the bunk below us made an excellent effort to derail the train with snoring of a magnificent 6.7 on the richter scale.

We arrived at 7 am in a very cold Pingyao to be greeted by the usual touts and rickshaws etc which i have now run out of patience with and just completely ignore.I am so bored of being the target of thievery by stealth and rickshaw.

We walked the 700 metres or so to the old town in a quest to find some accommodation , we found The Yamen Hostel, which rang a bell for some reason, maybe i had seen it on the internet, so we checked in , paid for a night in advance and went to get a couple fo hours sleep, but, the room!!

First time i paid in advance here and it was a mistake, the rooms were freezing, the bathrooms stank, there was no evidence of recent cleaning activity. We were not happy but thought we would change the next day.

We spent 3 hours in the afternoon attempting to obtain money in the town that was once famous for banking!

The next day we checked out of Yamen Hostel and moved into a much nicer , warmer, cleaner room in a chinese guesthouse just 5 doors down, dont know what the name of the place was but should be called whiskey by night and shouting by day due to the chinese clients.

We spent the full couple of days in Pingyao walking the streets discovering small houses with beautiful courtyards, trawling the souvenir shops for the best possible bargains and leaving the old city to eat at the market just outside the old city walls,as the restaurants in Pingyao old town ALL have the exactly the same menus, with the food being average at high prices!!

Yamen Hostel did however have a decent western menu with the cheapest large bottles of beer i have seen in China!

The town is lovely but a couple of days is enough , we met other travellers here who had been here for 4 days and they were just waiting around for days for various transport links to their chosen destination.

Anyway , onto our next destination , BEIJING (again) then home to France via Switzeland and Spain!!

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Photos

Yamen Hostel
Great bar and communal area, CRAP rooms!

Chinese tour groups
What worse than a chinese tour group? Yes , 2 chinese tour groups!!!!

Kung Fu fighting
those old ladies were not quita as fast as lightening!

Night time in Pingyao
Very nice place in the evening.

FOOD!
2 spicy chicken kebabs in fried bread sandwiches for under a euro!! mmmm