Asia > China > Pingyao
I woke up at 5AM on the night train from 大同 Datong. Shortly thereafter we arrived at the city Taihuan. Outside the Datong train station we found a minibus which soon was going to 平遥 Pingyao, one of China's most well-preserved cities. According to our guide book, a good idea was to bring cash money because "no bank exist"... Tobias was assigned the mission to quick get some money, I guarded our bags and the minibus. The ATM he found didn't want to give him any money so we took a chance and went to Pingyao. "There have to be at least one ATM there".
After arrival we went straight to the hotel/hostel we'd booked in advance from Datong and yes, they did know about an ATM just outside the city walls. Good, now we can afford our room and it's now also possible for us to leave tomorrow when we will try to go to 西安 Xi'an!
Our hotel here in Pingyao is cosy and has a nice court yard. The city seem to be pretty calm and quite, at least inside the 6km long city wall. Effort is put to keep the city well-preserved, I guess a big reason for that is tourism.
Many roads are only for pedestrians and many cars and mopeds runs on electricity. Red lanterns is everywhere and their light is needed since not much ordinary street lights exists.
This is the city were we have heard most western music along the streets. For example an old 90's dance hit from the group "2 Unlimited".
Later today there was some heavy rains, we took the opportunity to rest. In the evening we got out and took some traditional photos in the dark. We will try to get up early and take some more photos.
Zai jian!
![Pingyao city wall - A seemingly well preserved city wall around the seemingly well preserved[...]](/images/entries/en/china2006_pingyao-city-wall-(206).jpg "Show fullsize (opens new window)")
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![Man singing/screaming (video) - This video clip features a man singing in a very special way. I captured[...]](/images/entries/en/china2006_man-singingscreaming-video-(255)_430px.jpg "Picture from video clip")
