Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

Pingyao

Earlier this week I traveled to Pingyao, which is located in central China. What's special about this place is that it's one of the most well preserved medieval towns in the country. A lot of what you see there looks the way it did hundreds of years ago during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368 to 1911). Travel writers have described being in the town as if you went back in time.

One of the defining features of Pingyao is the still existing city wall surrounding it. It's around 40 feet high and tourists are allowed to walk on it.

Although the wall doesn't exactly have any enemies to defend against, it does seem to act as barrier between the ancient architecture of Pingyao and the modern China outside.

Very few cars are allowed in the city. And hardly any building within the town is over three stories high. Most are just one level.  There are no streetlights either, just strings of red lanterns that line between the buildings.

When you are shopping or dining here, you also get the treat of visiting many of these historical buildings.

The hotel I stayed at was located in a traditional courtyard home. The manager says the place is several hundred years old.

To get around, I had to take one of these. Basically it's Pingyao's version of a taxi.

It felt like I was riding a lawnmower. I think the top speed was about 25 mph.

Pingyao has quite a few stray dogs running around. But I was surprised to find a few stray roosters clucking about. Relatively speaking, this Chinese town is small, around 490,000 people. On the outskirts, you can find many farms.

Here is some cheap food I bought with a pair of fellow students at my university. The honeycomb of dumplings, a specialty found in Pingyao, was the tastiest.

Even as Pingyao likes to live in the past, this town is very much a place of tourism. Most of the shops on the major streets here sell souvenirs. At the same time, all the restaurants display the same English labeled menu outside their doors. Local people here keep an eye out for foreigners, incessantly asking them if they need a tour guide or a driver to get around.

As annoying as it is to be bothered, the tourism is good for the local economy. One driver told me that before he was doing this he used to be a farmer. Back then he made close to around $500 to $600 for the entire year. As tourism developed in Pingyao, he changed professions.

Pingyao looks its best at night, when all the red lanterns are on.

The funny thing is that when I first arrived in Pingyao, it happened to be 5:30 a.m. By then nearly all the lights in the town had been turned off. The town seemed to almost literally disappear.