Pingyao

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From Pingyao we took a night train to Pingyao - a very nice town - again surrounded with walls - this time really old, from the time of Ming dynesty (the ones with the agartalim from the movies) about 400 years ago. This is the area were the movie "red lanterns" was filmed.
The town used to be in a rural area so it was not dammaged over the years.
we stayed in a chinese style house, with intenral courtyard. We had a huge bed (2x3) made of bricks and mattress on top (typical to the town). A small woden table is standing on the bed for eating. In some old houses here there is a small tunnel under the bed, so you can make fire in it and warm the nights.
For 120y (60 with student cards or Israeli driving liscence) you get tickets for 2 days for 19 sites inside the walls. The first banks in china were established here and also the first armed escort agencies (to move goods and money) so most of the sites are old banks and escort companies, reach people houses and the government area with a prison and a tourture area in it.
we checked 2 sites per day, ate , watched dvd's ("flight 93"). We even had a karaoke night (in the guest house across the street where all the westerns stay). Actually it was only Maya, Shaked and us. There were only playback without subtitles, so at some point we just sang to the mike some Hebrew songs.
stay tuned - coming up - Biejing!

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Photos

Our street
Our hotel is the right, the Yamen hotel where we used to hang is on the left.

Our room - Pingyao style
Giant bed with a small table

Like our room but older...
An authentic bed in one of the old museum houses

Chatan sharlil
The poor bride was full of dust and sand - it was really windy that day.