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Published: March 19th 2011
Chinese train stations
...With guns, and police dogs...The next morning, after some quite reluctant waking up and a lovely breakfast from Ayi, we had a little wander before the minibus came at 11. By 11:25 it was quite obvious that no minibus was coming, so we set off on the 45 minute wander back down to the village, which was good fun, just strolling through the beautiful countryside singing songs.
Eventually we ended up back in the village and caught a bus which, the driver assured us, was going to Pingyao... After a few hours the bus dropped us in a town and said that we should go to the train station as there will definitely be trains to Pingyao from there... When we arrived at the train station, after an exceedingly busy bus journey on a very over-capacity bus, there of course wasn't a train until tomorrow, so we decided to trek on to another town a bit closer to Pingyao and try our luck there! Due to the whole Chinese new year’s thing, the trains were absolutely packed, and as the ticket sellers carry on selling even when there are no more seats, we ended up standing for quite a bit of the journey, before
On the streets of Pingyao
Stevie and Hannah on the streets of pingyao...although theres lots of hype about this place, in winter it isnt all that amazing... making some more Chinese friends who budged up a bit on their seats for us. Eventually we arrived in Fenyuang, where we'd just missed the last bus...so we all hopped in some guys little car after bargaining for quite a while and he whizzed us off on the 1hr journey to Pingyao for 100 kuai, which is half the price other people were offering. We had a slightly dodgy moment when he drove off the road on a little track that looked like it led nowhere, but it did in fact turn out to be a shortcut, so it's all good!
After arriving in Pingyao we had a rather hurried search for accommodation, with us all being bursting for the toilet, but we did eventually make it to "harmony hostel" which was really nice, with really helpful staff...even if the general air here felt like it was sandpapering your throat. I think it was a lack of rain and general pollution, but it felt like we were breathing death. We had a look around the town, which, in truth was very cold and not very lively at all. I can imagine that in summer this place is nice, but
Cooking broth
Cool picture of a woman cooking some sort of interesting looking broth in Kaifeng during winter it’s not great. We popped into a few different restaurant/cafes and after getting fed up with the pollution decided to head back up to Taiyuan, and from there catch another train to Zhengzhou in Henan province, all on our way to see Michelle in Hebi for new years.
Little did we know just quite how terrible transport gets at new years, not helped by snow that had cancelled all the long distance buses. As it was we had to spend a night in Taiyuan before catching an uber fast train to Zhengzhou, which was actually quite fun really! We got big fat awesome armchairs and then rocketed along at up to 250km/h! When we arrived in Zhengzhou, we got to a hostel and then went out to get some quick food before having a nice long rest. The hotels shared showers were awesome and so we all had big long (and quite needed) showers. After we had woken up and showered we went our separate ways for some wandering around the city, and found a cool little food Market, where I got some lovely Xiao Chi, before heading on to Kaifeng.
Now Kaifeng is known for
Kaifeng Xiao chi
Soooo many different little stalls. having a huge night Market and lots of cool bits and bobs to buy. We had a wander looking at all of the crazy foods and I for some reason ate sheep eyeballs, which I wouldn't really recommend. And some crazy fruitcakey stuff, which was also kinda weird.
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