Xi'an, Pingyao and Beijing. 23 Nov - 2December

Heading towards the end of our China travels, flying from Beijing to Guilin to sample rural China with rice terraces, cycling through little villages in the countryside, bamboo rafting down the Li River and the stunning karst scenery the area is famed for. We could have caught another overnight train and whilst I don't mind them, the thought of spending twenty hours cooped in a cabin with two strangers and tons of blokes stood in the corridor chain smoking so that everything reeks of smoke, for the same price we decided to fly and save ourselves seventeen hours!!!
The weather this morning is bright blue skies. No signs of yesterday's horrendous pollution remains. All day it never got bright. Reports suggest the poisonous gasses in the air were 23 times the WHO recommended limits. Tony's chest hurt all day and my lungs were burning in the evening. Visibility was practically zero and there was no point taking photos at the Forbidden City because everything was just shrouded in grey mist.
It was also cold! Temperatures in both Pingyao, where we came from before Beijing, and in Beijing itself have hovered between zero and minus five. Buying those down jackets in Nepal was definitely a good decision. Snow and black ice covered the ground making walking a challenge at times, especially on the Great Wall.
We decided to walk Jinshenling to Semitai and due to time limitations, booked a day trip, being advised we didn't need to walk with the group and guide and could just be dropped at Jinshenling and collected at Semitai. We should have known it wouldn't work out that way. We got there and the guide said we would be doing a short circuit and the bus would collect us at the same place we were dropped off. Needless to say we were not happy to spend seven hours on a bus and only get two and a half on the wall. Our complaint back at the hostel resulted in some money back, an apology and a free drink in the bar of our choice. Yay, red wine for free!
It was still impressive to see the wall snaking across the mountain tops and its another tick on my travel must see list. Walking the steep sections was pretty treacherous in places due to black ice. There was a sign saying the section of wall we wanted to do was closed due to bad weather....which we duly disregarded and walked on an unrestored section to capture the difference between this and the better preserved areas. As we had travelled quite far from Beijing there weren't many people around and for prolonged periods Tony & I were the only ones about, having left the other members of our group behind.
The signage in China has made me laugh, and be rather frustrated, several times. Some for the translations making no sense, some for the airy fairy names and descriptions, for example; ' the golden calcified rocks are like sometimes auspicious lotus platform, sometimes like dragon paws, and silver spring drops into forests in a turbulent manner with formidable and deafened roars'. This was one we saw at Huanglong. What really irks me though are the ones every 100m in national parks warning of 'slippery floor' 'caution, drop'. I kid you not, the drop was one foot! The one that astounded me the most though was at The Great Wall. 'Be careful you do not catch cold on the wall'. It was sub zero temperature, there was a strong possibility of this!! Nanny state to the extreme.
We also spent time in Beijing walking the Hutongs, the old neighbourhoods of the city where we discovered a tiny American micro brewery called Great Leap. The food and drink budget went out of the window as we sampled a few pints of decent ale, each costing roughly the same as back home. China hadn't exactly wowed us with decent beer, most being 2.5% ABV and tasting like water, so this was a welcome experience. Some Americans who live in Beijing were there and ordered us fab pizza in from a local takeaway. This too was a nice change from rice and noodles!
We visited the 2008 Olympic City, walked around The of Temple Of Heaven Park-essentially a public park that they charge entry to. And then charge further entry fees if you want to visit any of the pavilions, and booked tickets to an acrobatic show at the Chaoyang Theatre which was fab but which attracted eleven people for the performance! Even less than the Sichuan opera but a couple more than the Naxi orchestra performance in Lijiang!!
Prior to coming to Beijing we'd been to see the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an. Another tick off the must see list. Another I'm glad we've seen, feel privileged that we can afford to travel and see these things and another coming away and not feeling awed like we thought we would. We were lucky that it wasn't too busy so we had great views of them but they are essentially excavation pits in huge warehouses. Seeing them ten years ago when they were still surrounded by fields as they had been found would have been a different and far greater experience. Still, it was £15 well spent!
We knew there wasn't much to keep us in Xi'an so we only stayed one night, but essentially had two full days as we stepped off the overnight train from Chengdu at 9.30am. The hostel weren't there to collect us as we'd arranged and when we got there, simply said 'oh, the driver forgot'. We'd had the confirmation email from them less than 24hours before! Luckily we'd prepared and obtained the address in Chinese for the taxi driver just in case something like this happened.
The best thing about Xi'an was the Muslim Quarter-streets filled with fab food stalls and neon lights. Somewhere with a bit of atmosphere! We had spicy tofu, cumin scented baby potatoes, chilli squid, pittas stuffed with spiced lamb and fresh squeezed pomegranate juice as we walked amongst throngs of other tourists, occasionally spotting another Westerner.
It was then time for another overnight train to Pingyao, getting on at 11pm, heading straight to sleep and getting up at 7am to step off the train at 7.25am to much colder weather and snow on the ground. Waking up the next morning, the cabin smelt putrid! The guy we had shared it with had been farting all night. God knows what he'd eaten before bed but the result of it smelt bad!!
Our Pingyao hostel was another which offerd a free pick up from the train station. This time they'd just ignored my two emails requesting said pick up. We argued with a taxi driver who refused to use the meter and wanted to charge 40¥ to go less than 1.5miles. We refused and ended up getting a little tuk tuk who wanted ¥10 but as soon as we were settled with our bags, upped it to ¥15. Too weary to argue any further I agreed, much to Tony's disapproval. He then decided not to drop us at our hostel but down an alleyway telling us to turn right and miming not to slip on the ground.
It transpired we shouldn't go right but actually left. Luckily a nice man spotted us looking a little lost and turned us around and walked us to the guesthouse, stopping en route for photos of us and then taking more with us, once we got to the hostel!
Pingyao, according to the Lonely Planet, is a place which you will fall in love with and not want to leave. The traditional, unrestored architecture gives an insight into the real China, and it was a place I had been looking forward to visiting since we started researching our China travels. Hmmm. We were both a little underwhelmed. Perhaps it was the grey sky laden with snow, the cold temperatures, the snow on the ground which had turned black with dirt or the fact that it was 'out of season' and there weren't many tourists or shops open. After five hours we were ready to leave but had an onward train to Beijing booked two days later.
An Austrian couple who were leaving as we checked in gave us their city pass which is valid for three days. We found out when we went to use it to access the city walls, 'the best preserved in China', that you can only see each attraction once within those three days! A lot of smiling and a fifteen minute conversation using google translate and Pleko where I said we'd used it as we walked a short section, come off for lunch and now wanted to walk the rest-an absolute lie, worked a treat and the ticket guard responded on google translate 'you are foreign friend so I can not let you, can not let you on, but will let you'. Slightly confused whether he was letting us on or not, he opened the ticket barrier and then asked if we had foreign coins we could donate to his collection. We had some nepalese rupee which we handed over and promised to return the next day with Malawian quacha and British coins. Unfortunately he wasn't there when we did return!
We then played Russian roulette with the ticket a few more times to access the courtyards which Pingyao seems to be famous for. These are essentially two courtyards with rooms coming off then which served as homes in years gone by. Every time we approached a ticket barrier we wondered whether we get get a green tick to let us through or a red cross declining entry. None were very good so we are so thankful for the free pass which saved us £15 each!!
With time to kill we arranged a tour the next day to the longest underground tunnels in China, an hours drive away. Entry was only about a fiver but the transport cost us over £30!! It was an absolute waste of money with both the village and the tunnels being a compete disappointment. We did however get to see industrial China en route. Huge coal factories belching out vast smoke plumes, contributing to the smoggy sky.
We definitely weren't sad to leave.
I think we're both looking forward to getting to Guilin and kicking back a bit and breathing in less polluted air and being a little warmer! Fingers crossed we're not disappointed!