Shanxi

Arrival is deceptive, the bullet train deposited us at an anonymous new station and we met our new guide and Mr Yang the driver. It immediately felt different; in Beijing sleek modern Volkswagen driven by our expert driver who glided through the chaos of the city traffic. Mr Yang's car was a battered people carrier with the back row of seats weighed down by a vast gas canister, our bags got tucked in round it and it didnt move. Th car too had slightly fraying seat covers and a golden plastic Mao on the dash. The traffic here is less chaotic more plain batshit, but very friendly none of the temper and cursing that would result at home from the sorts of manoeuvres that are standard here. As we came off the practically deserted new highway we were in an area of apparently fairly new but already tired looking shops and apartments. Pingyao outside the walls is a boom town loads of new blocks of flats going up and according to our guide most people want to live outside the walls. Only the elderly who like to look at the tourists like living inside the walls. Pingyao county has a population of 500,000 and they seem to be heading for the city, although currently only about 40,000 live there. A sudden stop to avoid a vehicle that had moved into our lane but coming towards us...this was avoiding a funeral. Trucks and people carrying glittery decorations, a small truck with a painted coffin and an extended golf cart with some additional mourners - the coop could learn something - it certainly didnt seem very solemn. Mr Yang drove through a large set of gates (only locals can do this and even then they are restricted) and threaded the large car down tiny alleys to our hotel. Within the walls the city a mix of Ming and Qing architecture and the oldest part of the walls - the clay core, dates back 3000 years. our hotel is a hutong; a courtyarded building. It is completely lovely to look at a brick and wooden structure and our room is one of or 8 around a courtyard, there are a number of other courtyards so I suspect the place is larger than it appears. Snag one I cant connect to the internet - I have wifi but there is some sort of DHCP issue that stops it authenticating on my phone - the tablet is fine however. Having issued us with a map our guide left us to it and we set off for a wander. Snag 1 - the map only has english names for 4 streets. Those four streets are not named in the city, lots of other named streets but they are in chinese on our map. however we wandered happily past lots of tourist aimed shops as well as ordinary shops, historic buildings and tiny alleys that led into the unknown. We are the only western faces here as far as we can tell - on the streets the crowds were all chinese and we have been thoroughly stared at by the elderly locals who are (and it is such a terrible cliche) inscrutable - a smile, a wave, a nihao get no response.... However in a phenomenon I havent experienced since my last visit to Hong Kong we did get collared by three sets of students doing surveys...all spoke impeccable English, one set insisted on photographing us to prove we were real, one lot videoed the whole thing and the last ones were most ecstatic to find us but didn't insist on verification. After this we needed snacks - so Portuguese custard tart for dad and a black sesame & custard dipped slice of white bread for me (not what I expected but nice).
We eventually navigated back to the hotel for Dad's power nap - this is when we discovered the weakness of the mapping - still we got back eventually. Dad napped and I swore at the phone trying to sort the internet issue. At last we decided we needed food - our guide had helpfully given suggestions and there was one other recommendation (People dont com to Pingyao for the food!) but sadly we couldn't find one of them, one was empty - so despite the recommendation it was rejected and the last we didnt fancy - chicken with mushy shrimp, or a selection of duck tongues were the high points so we decided we would scoot back to our hotel - apparently most people eat at their hotels here. So we got lost again, but by now it was dark, and we were hungry /hangry - no lunch we were on the train and we could see that places were closing down for the night.......very stressy. when we finally stumbled in the staff were not thrilled to see us but they sorted some food and a much needed beer for us. Fortified we went back out for another wander around and managed not to get lost. At 10:30 we returned to our overheated hotel room - no aircon lots of heating- again - I have been too hot to sleep now for three nights...at which point the bathroom plumbing started to play up - it is ok now but we might need a man with plunger in the morning - too exhausted to worry about it now though.Read more