Blogs from Pingyao, Shanxi, China, Asia - page 6

Blogs are like buses, you wait for ages and then..... Early the next morning (have you noticed how many early mornings we’re doing, its worse than going to work you know!) We got the slowest taxi in town to the bus station, where we boarded a rickety old bus to Taiyuan for the connecting bus to Pingyao, an ancient Ming dynasty walled banking city which has remained relatively untouched and is now a major tourist attraction as all the Qing dynasty architecture exits much as it was. After Dan took charge and organized motorcycle rickshaws for us and the other westerners on the bus, we put-putted into town and settled into the hostel (Harmony Guesthouse - really friendly and helpful, with big clean rooms). The afternoon was spent wandering the backstreets. Cars are banned from the ... read more

Slowly I am getting this blog done. One thing that travelblog.org did was increase the number of pictures I can send. I am not sure that is a good thing. Like anything doing with a camera, I tend to take too many pictures (these digitals are a dream come true for me) and, the result to you is that I am sending oodles more. Down at the end, there is a '2' (maybe a 3 on this one, oh lordy) that you can go to to see the rest. Note: To confuse us, Xian is in Shaaxi province and Pingyao is in Shanxi province. Some of the Hostels in this part of China pick you up at the train(with advance reservations). Xian was my first (and miserable experience) with this added service. The gal didn't wait ... read more

We caught a train to Taiyuan which is an hour away from Pingyao at 23.00, ending up at 7 am the following morning having no sleep and frustrated as hell as the squat loo were locked because some bright spark had sprayed their evil bout of D&V all over the place and must have died in there soon after, there were no western loo's anywhere which left me feeling constipated in Taiyuan. I had heard a whisper that Pingyao had no ATM and it is impossible to cash traveller’s cheques either. Ironically Pingyao was the first place in China to create banks, money and a cheque system to assist the huge amounts of silver being used by booming business back in the Ming dynasty. Around 1800 when the imperial imperials had already defaulted on loans then ... read more

Salut les amis Pour les vacances du premier mais Mai je suis partie une journée a Pingyao; 26 h de train pour 10h sur place. Mais c'était sympa; le train comme la ville. A l'aller j'étais en face d'un noich de mon âge ingénieur qui parlais bien anglais, il était cool. En chine on ne peut acheter un billet train que dans la ville de départ du train. Donc faut s'acheter son retour sur place direct en arrivant. Après une grosse heure de queue; au guichet je pige qu'a moins de passer 3 jours à Pingyao faut que que je rentre le soir même. Comme ça j'ai économisé une nuit d'hôtel. La ville est sympa c'est très petit pour la chine; c fortifié et c'est vieux. Cette minuscule ville 50 000 Hab était la capitale économique ... read more

My next stop hadn't made it on my initial plan but I'd heard through a couple of other people about an ancient town north of Xian named Pingyao which is covientantly placed therefore allowing me to to break up the trip onto Beijing. Having waxed lyrical about my experiences of travelling on trains in China in my previous blog. My opinion has altered slightly after my journey from Xian to Pingyao. I was forced to travel by hard seat for the first time and, hopefully last time. Hard seats are in effect the fourth class on Chinese trains and just one step up in quality from standing. I'd gone into the journey in high spirits, but a little apprehensive about spending the next thirteen hours sitting down. I was determined not to make a fuss of ... read more