Lesson 6: Donna and Neil break down in the cold

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After much debate and discussion between us and the hostel staff we took the easy option of a £2 taxi ride to the monolithic Beijing West railway station rather than the 30p metro ride and 1 hour walk option! The usual push and shove later to get on the train - which we are becoming more accomplished at - we found our middle hard sleeper beds only to be confronted by the most grumpy and cantankerous old woman we have ever come across. She huffed at everyone and everything - Neil got an angry mouthful in Mandarin because his duvet touched the table next to her bed!

The train journey went smoothly and we got a full night's sleep due to the fact our feet weren't hanging off the end of the bunk (like the top sleeper experience!) and because anyone who made the slightest bit of noise got shouted at by the old woman! The conductor made sure we knew when to get off and we had a pick up unlike any other pick up waiting for us at Pingyao station. It was an electric motorbike rickshaw with a material cover all the way around it to keep the worst of the cold out. We felt like we were milk bottles being delivered!

Pingyao is a weird place, getting off the train gave no indication that there was an old town. The new town feels very frontier town-like (approaching on the train there were miles and miles of empty fields then the town suddenly appeared) and after a couple of minutes of 'driving' we came to the walled old town part of Pingyao. Pingyao is the best preserved walled city in China and it dates from the Ming Dynasty. It's best to describe Pingyao as grey (not in a nasty way). The huge city walls are grey, the bricks the houses are built from are grey and the cobbles on the roads are grey. The splash of colour comes from the red lanterns which are hung outside every home/shop/guesthouse to light it up in the evening. Even with all the greyness it's still a pretty place although not very big, so a day here is more than long enough.

Our milk float delivered us to Harmony Guesthouse, we were greeted by the owner and we were sat down with a cup of tea each. We expected to be shown our room straight away, but no, a breakfast menu was pushed in front of us (we were then asked 4 times if we wanted breakfast!) and the owner started hassling us to buy tickets for our onward travel. Refusing all of this we were then taken to our room. For 100 Yuan, the room wasn't great. Within 30 minutes of being in the room both the electricity and heating were turned off (we suspect to save money). When questioned the owner and his wife made the excuse that the whole city had no heating or power (yeh right, other places did have heating and power!). What Harmony Guesthouse forgets to advertise is that it only puts it's heating - and therefore hot water - on at 6pm and turns it off at midnight. This is a really big deal when the daytime temperature is -2! The other thing we didn't like was that every time we walked through the restaurant we got hassled to eat or buy our onward tickets. Grrrrr!

Being a very small place, meant that there were limited food options here - unless we were up for chicken feet and yak testicles! So we ended up eating at Pingyao's hostelling international place. The name and address of this place made us laugh...Yamen Hostel on Yamen Street (pity the town wasn't called Yamen too!). Pingyao was another one of those places with no supermarkets, so even buying snacks was difficult...thankfully we were only staying one night. BUT there were plenty of the usual tourist tat shops around to buy tea and the like.

While in Pingyao we met 4 Aussies in their 60's who were on their hols. They had seen quite a bit of China and they gave us some good tips on other places to visit...it was strange that there weren't very many tourists around in Pingyao and in hindsight it was probably because is was so bloody cold! We could manage around an hour outside before we had to go inside! We seemed to get a lot of stares here, which could have been down to us only wearing 'double' jumpers when even the locals were wearing big fluffy coats! They were probably saying, 'look at those crazy foreigners'...what we say in bravado is that we are hard northerners but in reality it was very, very cold. If we were cold then the kids in China must be freezing. What we have forgotten to mention is that nappies aren't used here. The kids just have a slit in their pants where their bums poke out. When they need to wee or poo, their parents hold their legs up and hey presto no need to fiddle with pulling down their pants. There is something really strange about seeing little kids wrapped up like the Michelin man with their little bums poking through a hole in the back of their pants...their bums must get cold?!

We had opted to do our next leg to Xi'an - home of the Terracotta Warriors - by bus as it was a shorter journey at 6 hours versus the 12 hours on the train. Just to prove a point we booked our ticket at Yamen Hostel and at 5 Yuan cheaper we saved 30p each! The ticket even included a drop off to where the bus stopped. We were hoping it would be warmer in Xi'an...we have realised we really aren't winter people!

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Photos

pretty building in ye olde Pingyao
...the walled city had loads of shops, guesthouses etc with this kind of frontage....

Bar in Pingyao
at night the streets were lit up with red lanterns

Comments

[Lee]

North Pole
Hi Cuz and co, lee here, not the chinese one. pics of this place look amazing, really interesting streets, especially when empty. i have just explained to mahesh that you are both travelling the world, and his immediate question was a very excited "Have you been to the North Pole yet?" SO come on, what do i tell him? love, lee in London