Pingyao in the snow.

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Neil:
We've now left Beijing and arrived in a small town called Pingyao - an ancient town with a 6.7km wall surrounding the old part - very nice! First though, a word about taxi drivers. In India and most of China, they are all over the place. India especially, you get pestered by them all the time offering their services. It becomes a real pain at times. When we left Beijing, we decided to take the underground and then a taxi to the train station. When we got off the underground, we hunted for a taxi and managed to flag one down but to our surprise he refused to take us to the train station. We still had 30 mins before the train left so we waited and flagged a second taxt down. He also refused to take us - bizarre. With 25 minutes to departure, we tried one more time and failed. By this point we we're really peaved off. We had our huge bags on our back which were really beginning to hurt and our small rucksacks strapped to our fronts. With no option left we decieded we'd have to walk, but the roads we're massive and it had gone dark so we didn't have a clue where we were on the map. We finally managed to work out where we were and walked as fast as we could to the station which turned out to be about a mile and a half away. We must have looked a picture - even though it was cold, we were both sweating profusley with faces like thunder - barging our way through all the rush hour walkers. We finally made it to Beijing West Station - the biggest station in the world - and managed to get on the train with minutes to spare. I was nearly pushed beyond my limits when we had to place our bags through an xray scanner like they have at the airports. When nicky went to pick her bag up her hand slipped and she punched me full whack in the face as i was bending down. How I managed to bite my lip and remain calm is beyond me. When we finally made it to our carriage we we're both dripping with sweat and so relieved. Taxi drivers!!

Nicky:
I would like to add that it was not my fault i punched him in the face, my bag is bloody heavy and i was in a rush, and that i had reached my limit about 20 minutes before when we were frogmarching along a v big, v busy main road not entirely sure if we were going in the right direction wondering where we were going to spend the night if we missed the overnight train. But I am glad we made the effort to come to Pingyao, it is easy to imagine it hasnt changed since it was built several hundred years ago, none of the shops or food stalls get going much before half 9/10am and now it is snowing there is hardly anyone around. I wouldnt want to spend lots of time here - we have exhausted the tourist sites (including the first bank in china) in a couple of half days. But it is nice to have some time to catch our breath - doing Hong Kong, Shanghai and Bejing in a week was hard work.(obviously not hard work like going to work but you know what i mean!) If the buses are up and running tomo we are going to try and go to the city near where the terracotta soldiers were found and then make our way back to Shanghai for our flight on sunday. Hope everyone is ok, thank you for all your messages and comments they are great to read!! Lots of love N & N xxxxx

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Photos

Mental jogger
Despite the snow neil went for a jog along the wall around pingyao

Comments

[Debs]

I wouod LOVE to run on the great wall, very jealous! Looks bloody cold guys x

[Victoria]

Shopping!!!
Hi Guys, Sounds like you are both having a fantastic time - Really enjoy reading about your adventure. Glad to hear Nicky has already been shopping for new shoes! Not quite Karen Millen I imagine. I have arrived in Devon and have even got email so will keep in touch. Keep up the blogs, luv V xxxxx

[Angie & Jim]

Jogging
Neil - shorts and snow !!!!!!!!