Ancient, old and so far over the hill you need a bicycle to get there, Pingyao is a supremely historical, interesting, picturesque town of almost unmatched antiquity, value, importance and significance. Even UNESCO has marked it off as one of their own it's so nice. One wonders then, this being China after all, why the authorities (in their ever pervading wisdom) didn't bulldoze the whole place down to make way for a bevvie of high rise concrete apartment blocks (in the classic Russian style), thus sending out a statement to the world, consistent with other similar acts of cultural rape, that the really didn't give a bugger for what anyone says behind it's back or otherwise.

The old town

Perhaps thats not fair. Pingyao is so pristine in it's preservation of old and dead glories that it would, possibly be past even the most hard bitten of Chinese planning officers to order it's destruction (who am I kidding, it's the tourist dollars of course). Whatever the reason, it was, thankfully still there when Judith, John, Amanda and I fell off our first overnight train of many, a bit stiff but suprisingly well slept and feasted our groggy eyes.

Pingyao is about as old as a town can get, it's been around for about 3000 years! Mostly as a collection of mud huts I would imagine, but from the 14th Century some cunning merchants started one of China's first banks here and the money came pouring in soon after. The whole place is encircled by an enormous, completely in-tact City wall that protects its paved streets and wonderful courtyard houses. Even the air felt old as we were driven through one of the cardinal gates from the train station on a motorbike powered tuk-tuk. Our hotel, the Yamen, didn't let us down either. It is slap bang in the middle of everything, no spring chicken itself with five courtyards, funny roofs that curl up most oddly in that old Chinese fashion, great rooms, a DVD room, free internet, great staff and even good food!

Our oldy worldy hostel



We'd arrived at six something in the morning (not a time I see that often) and so had the pleasure of seeing the streets and buildings without the added accessory of hoards of tour groups following small women with flags and loudspeakers, themselves followed by stall holders and water salesmen. It is a really peacefull, emotive place in the early hours, much different to the busy streets we walked about in after we'd settled down, had a shower and gobbled down some brekkie. The Chinese are prolific tourists within their own country, you can't go anywhere of interest without bumping into a few thousand (a small gathering in China). It speaks well of their patriotism I suppose, but nothing ever goes on in this country on a small scale, everything has to be HUGE. Noise, traffic, pollution and crowds. Pingyao is no exception, but the whole town is an attraction, we found it easy to slip down a little side street where nobody was trying to sell us genuine antiques, eventually finding ourselves at the big outer wall (which is a bit cool) and stolling along that for a bit.

Snoozing 'antiqe' seller



There is quite a lot to see in Pingyao (City God Temple, War God Temple, Wealth God Temple, Lucky Fortune Temple, Taoist Temple, Confucious Temple... to name but a few) so we spent our first day there chilling out (watched Wallace and Grommitt and the Curse of the Ware-Rabbit), eating food, having a foot massage (Judith) and generally working hard to soak up the atmosphere using as little energy as possible. The next day, as if to catch up, we hired bikes.

Braving a tandem

Luckily most of Pingyao is off limits to traffic, so we're not dead. Our trusty steeds took us to the first bank, which was quite enormous and interesting for John who used to work in a bank, but not like this one, there was a room where they kept the silver ingots and a stable round the back. It even had a kitchen where the cooks used to make dinner for the richer customers! We biked round a few of the temples (the fake student cards from Bangkok paid for themselves today by the way), the Taoist was a personal favourite. In front of a huge statue of Lao Tze Amanda was blessed by a strangely dressed man, she got a yellow piece of paper with arcane symbols on it and was splashed a few times by what must have been holy water (I hope). Very cultural.

Being blessed in the Taosit temple

The walls were open to us that day and we got to climb into a few watchrowers and walk along the tops for a while with a stunning view inside over the old rooftop tiles. To the outside of course is the 'new' City of Pingyao, enormous, ugly and crowded. We didn't look that way too often. I found the only Christian Church in town and we managed to stop off at the City theatre hall to buy tickets for a show later that night. I didn't go because I was feeling a bit under the weather, but apparantly it was very good, men playing trumpets without a trumpet and lifting bicycles with their mouths and everything.

Chinese entertainment

It was over before we knew it in Pingyao. The most relaxing place we'd seen in China, ancient, un-moving history tends to settle a mans mind. Looking back it was one of the highlights and we loved it. The following morning we left our little hotel and got on a bus bound for Xi-an. More tourist madness at the Terracotta army awaited.

Bye bye donkeys and bikes, hello big city lights