Beijing - Pingyao - Xi'an

Simon writes:

Right. We've got a bundle of stuff for you people to catch up on, so they'll be no fannying about with gimmics, ridiculous patter about penguins or news of our bowel movements. It's pure, unadulterated traveller boilerplate from here on in.

In Beijing, we partied with these people;

got followed around by this fella (hooray, it's Jamo Samo - woohoo!);

and looked at these things:




We then got on an overnight train to Pingyao a day later than planned. There were no sleeper compartments left so we went third class and spent the night on a small bench nestled in other peoples' armpits. All a bit ropey really. Still, this means we are now officially quadruple hard traveller types.

Pingyao is nothing short of enchanting. It's basically what much of Beijing would probably now look like if they hadn't wrecking-balled it all and built a bunch of soul-sapping skyscrapers. There are no cars in Pingyao and all the buildings look like they would have done centuries ago. There's also a city wall that you can walk all the way round. Lovely lovely lovely!





A couple of things to note: people in Pingyao are very much into their sweetcorn;

you can cycle out to an amazing temple complex and see sculptures (and sculptors!) that are over a thousand years old



Next, we got an extremely efficient and comfortable bus to Xi'an (terracotta warriors will be conquered tomorrow). Today, I've managed to copy all my photos onto cds and Noelle has taken her trousers off in the street so they could be professionally shortened (teehee!).


Xi'an has an interesting Muslim quarter as well as a full-option city wall, which we biked round on a tandem.



Bye!

S

PS A big hello to all you vegetarians out there with a picture of what we had for lunch:

Yummy!