Pingyao

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2nd try as I lost the connection last time when I presses save....

It's a 6-7 hours train ride from Datong to Pingyao. I was the only one getting of the train there and was picked up by my hotel. It was a real beautiful one, in an house. Had an antique bed and furniture. Sadly enough it was cold and drizling....

First a bit about Pingyao. It's Unesco world heritage and it's poverty saved it. Once a very important banking center (during the Ming dynasty) it slipped into obscurity with as a result that it never was modernised. Once you enter the walls around the city, you step back into time, to the last 18th-early 19th century. No cars are allowed into the most inner part of the city. And it's also a small city, the walls around it are 6km in total. It's a very touristy place now...

Once I checked into the hotel and got changed I went on explorig. First to buy a ticket, 120 yuan and valuable for two days under the condition that you have it stamped at the North gate in the afternoon. As it was already afternoon, the hotelmanager wrote on my city map in Chinese that I needed my ticket stamped so that went all very smooth.

With that ticket you can visit all the little museums spread out over the city. THe buildings are much more impressive then what's on display though. All in wood, very nicely carved. There are also a few temples you can visit, I liked the Confusius temple the most. But of course I fell into a tourist trap, I should know beter by now. They just take you by the hand, have you burn some nice smelling sticks, say a little prayer for you and then you have to pay 200 yuan for your happiness. I got out with paying 'only' 100 yuan and a very bad feeling...

To my surprise I managed to do a lot on my first afternoon. So the next morning I went to explore the walls around the city, as you can walk on them. I don't know whether I took the way up instead of the way down or whether I was a bit too early, but they didn't check my ticket. Every so many meteres, there is a little tower with in it behind a looking glass you can see some street scenes but without explenation. The toothpulling was easy to recognise, but not eveything. i still don't know what the scene with in front some heads being knocked of (with a hammer) and in the back something that looked like a sword swallower or a sword eater could have meant...

After the walls I visited a few other museum, the old govermenthouse being the most intresting one. You can see eg the prision there, in use 'till the 60s. Sadly enough I had no time to explore everything as it was time to go back to my hotel and take the taxi to the Xi'an bus.

The taxi turned out to be a scooter rhiska so you can understand that I was a bit surprised when it went to a toll gate as I didn't think it would be allowed there. Turned out that the bus would pick me up there. Later on I was joined by Nicole from Swiss.

Driving on the highway in China is also something special. First of all, compared with city streets, there is hardly any traffic. Secondly, you see people wallkign there, just haling the bus they want. Also people get of just somewhere on the highway, mostly close to a bridge over it.

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