Oct 16, 2007 - Tiayuan/Night Train

This morning we left Pingyao and headed for the Shuanglin Temple just outside the city. This temple is unusual in that it depicts some female figures and most figures appear life-like, not scary. There was a class of art students making clay sculptures of some of the heads and figures. They were a funny bunch and we had our pictures taken with them. The large buddha in the main temple seems to be made of stone, plaster and metal and is painted. The side temples had more human looking figures which were under very ornate awnings. This temple...

Oct 15, 2007 - Pingyao

Pingyao is a charming walled city that was the financial center of ancient China, in fact, the first bank was here. We were able to see some of the old banks, government center and the Confucian temple. In the Rishengchang Financial House Museum, there were old coins and an exhibit on how money was made. We also walked some of the wall (you can walk on it like the Great Wall). The hotel is a luxury after the past few nights and the food has been excellent. This afternoon I spent shopping but will do most of it in Shanghai so I don't have...

Oct 12, 2007 - Datong/Wutai Shan

Well, I'm sorry to report that our luggage was broken into on the train and my cell phone was stolen. It didn't work here anyhow, but I still feel like calling just to cuss out the person answering. Enough of that. Today, we saw the Hanging Temple, which is a monastery built into the side of a cliff, it was really high up there, but the guide said that it would still be washed away in a flood. A dam has been built to protect this treasure. It was scary to look over the edge, not many guard rails! After lunch, we saw the Wooden Pagoda,...

Oct 11, 2007 - Datong

When we got on the train, there were 4 to a sleeper car, 2 bunk beds in each. They were called soft sleepers, I would hate to see what hard sleepers are. This was a real adventure, very small compartments. There was a dining car, but unfortunately, it was also the smoking car. Arrived in Datong and it looks like what you think China is, dirty, gray sky and gray buildings. Our first stop after checking in was the Yungang caves, containing 50,000 Buddhist statues and sculptures. Some of the Buddhist caves contain many stone carvings and some...

Jun 6, 2007 - Pingyao

I've arrived at one of the most picturesque and well preserved small towns in China which has made a good first impression on me, so I've decided to spend 3 days or so here. Pingyao was China's main banking centre until a hundred years ago when it fell on hard times, and the lack of local wealth meant that there has been no money to modernise since. This bad luck has proved to be a boon in the last 10 years or so as tourism to China has increased, and thus the local economy is now very much geared towards tourism. I stayed at the Harmony...

Jun 4, 2007 - Datong, the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Temple

I caught my train to Datong from the enormous Beijing West train station. Datong is another unremarkable large dusty Chiese city which serves as a useful jumping off point for trips to the Yungang Caves and Hanging Temple. On arriving, I booked myself onto a CITS tour to the caves and the Hanging Temple for the next day, and had an early night. There were four of us on the tour (Julien from France, plus Luca and Lisa from Italy) and our guide. The Yungang caves are a series of Buddist grottos carved into sandstone cliffs, and are well...

May 7, 2007 - Wutai Shan en Pingyao

Na Datong met de bus naar Wutai Shan gegaan. Dit een heilige berggebied voor de Boeddisten. Daarom zijn op een klein gebied tientallen tempels, letterlijk naast elkaar. In Wutai Shan was het weer ongelooflijk druk met Chineze toeristen en Tibettaanse pelgrims. Afgezien van de drukte waren de tempels zeer mooi en sommige zelfs met goud bekleed! Omdat het zo druk was, waren zo goed als alle hostels volgeboekt. Gelukkig kon het tourist information in Datong nog een bed regelen. Dat bleek in een zeer primitief, oud huisje te zijn in een...

Jan 5, 2007 - Pingyao, Shanxi province

The sleeper trains in China turn out to be about the same standard as those in India - that's to say, pretty decent. Our arrival into Pingyao was shroud in a thick fog which seems to be present most mornings. It gradually fades into a thick haze. They say this is coal country... they certainly use a lot of it. As I write, the fire truck is parked outside investigating the chimney fire in the hostel that the staff have already hastily put out. It all caused quite a bit of excitment, but seems to have been caught early enough to not cause...

Oct 22, 2006 - Beijing

I had intended, once I left the Vodkatrain, to chill out and recover. However, if you have been reading this blog for a while you will appreciate that that was unlikely to happen and certainly the following two weeks contained its fair share of drunken nights. The hostel that I had moved into was on the traditional Chinese shopping lanes, which meant that it was constantly full of a confusion of people, cars, bikes and rickshaws. Occasionally shop owners would throw water onto the road for no apparent reason, people would hassle you trying...

Oct 14, 2006 - Pingyao - Enstpannung innerhalb historischer Mauern

Am 14. Oktober brachen wir in aller Herrgottsfruehe in Richtung Pingyao auf. Die Busfahrt von Wutai Shan nach Taiyuan war erneut ein kleines Abendteuer. Daran, dass die Maenner im Bus Kette rauchten, hatten wir uns schon gewoehnt, nun sollten wir aber erleben wie viele Menschen in einen Bus passen koennen, auch wenn die Plaetze alle besetzt sind. Kleine Klappstuehle wurden unter den Sitzen hergezaubert und wer dann immer noch keine Platz fand, musste sich dem Druck der Masse beugen und eine dem Stehen artverwandte Position einnehmen. Rauch,...

Oct 9, 2006 - Datong - Buddha und die dreckigste Stadt der Welt

Die Fahrt nach Datong wurde zu unserer erste Bewaehrungsprobe. Bewaffnet mit Karteikaertchen, auf denen die wichtigsten Begriffe und Redewendungen in Chinesisch verfasst waren, stuerzten wir uns ins Abenteuer. Der Zug war zunaechst wie erwartet uebervoll und da wir aus Gruenden unseres Finanzhaushalts die billigste Klasse gebucht hatten auch erwartungsgemaess unbequem. Nach vier von sechs Stunden Fahrt leerten sich jedoch die Abteile und wir konnten unsere Instantnudeln geniessen. Instantnudeln sind eine grosse Sache in chinesischen Zuegen,...

Aug 26, 2006 - Pingyao, a very old city.

Hi everybody. Old Pingyao claims to be one of the oldest cities in China and one of the few with an intact city wall. It is quite quaint and gives a little insight into what China must have been like a long, long time ago. In the photos you see a girl actually writing names on a grain of rice, remarkable. She writes the name in both Chinese and English. Even more remarkable. She then puts it in a small glass container, with a shape of your choice, along with a preserving liquid and a few pieces of died, dried grass and seals it. Then asks...