Konni & Matt - Perpetual Travellers: August 2012

East Asia
People’s Republic of China aka Red China
Shaanxi Province
Xian
South Gate
Ancient Street Youth Hostel +862987264259 hostelbl@hotmail.com
Small and barely adequate double room with a/c and shared bathroom for an overpriced CNY 120.- or US$ 18.80 per night. No wifi inside the room. Arrogant and xenophobic staff.

Click below for an interactive satellite view of the Ancient Street Youth Hostel and for directions:

N 34° 15.23' E 108° 56.65'

Note the random 0 - 500 m misalignment between Google’s maps and satellite views of the motherland, courtesy of the paranoid Chinese Communist Party.

Circumnavigating Xian’s large city centre in two-heel drive, in a healthy clockwise direction, along the formidable old city wall (12 m high, 18 m wide at the bottom, 15 m wide at the top; admission from the south gate: CNY 20.- or US$ 3.10 per person for senior citizens; length of walk: 14 km, duration: 4 ½ hours) which is touted by the comrades in charge of national tourism as "...the world’s largest and oldest city wall": built in the Ming dynasty (approximately 1368 - 1644 CE but who's counting) on the foundation of the Chang'an imperial city wall of the Tang dynasty (approximately 618 - 907 CE but who's counting) and fully restored during China's last communist dynasty (1947 - ? CE) in the 1980s.

Exploring the atmospheric backstreets in the Muslim Quarter aka Islamic Street, home to Xian’s relaxed and non-jihadist Muslim Hui community (no worries, YouTube is banned anyway in Red China), full of exotic fruit/veggie stalls with dates, pomegranates and persimmons, fantastic curio shops, secretive mosques hidden behind battered wooden doors, grinning Chinese men in white skullcaps and smiling Chinese women with their heads covered in coloured scarves, and later visiting Xian’s Huajue Great Mosque (admission: CNY 25.- or US$ 4.- per infidel), a magnificent blend of Chinese and Islamic architecture with the central minaret cunningly disguised as a pagoda.

Visiting, together with hundreds of domestic tourists, Xian's solidly built 14th-century Bell Tower, whose large bell used to be rung at dawn, and Drum Tower, where the city drummers used to mark nightfall (admission: CNY 40.- or US$ 6.35 per person).

Click below for more blog posts about Xian
06 Sep - 13 Sep 2012 Xian
05 Sep - 06 Sep 2012 Hua Shan
31 Aug - 05 Sep 2012 Xian

Click below for a summary of this year's travels
2012 Map Konni & Matt

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East Asia
People’s Republic of China aka Red China
Shanxi Province
Pingyao

Nan Dajie 165

Harmony Guesthouse +863545684952 harmonyguesthouse@asia.com
Adequate twin room with a/c, private bathroom and the dust of 5,000 plus years for CNY 100.- or US$ 15.70 per night. Professional, young staff.
Beer: 600-ml bottles of cold, nicely balanced Tsingtao Beer aka 青岛 or Qīngdǎo píjiǔ (4.0 % alc./vol.) for an overpriced CNY 10.- from the guest house.

Click below for an interactive satellite view of the Harmony Guesthouse in Pingyao, which we would recommend, and for directions:

N 37° 11.97' E 112° 10.81'

Note the random 0 - 500 m misalignment between Google’s maps and the satellite views of the motherland, courtesy of the paranoid Chinese Communist Party.

Climbing Pingyao’s magnificent 10m-high city walls, which date from 1370 CE and are punctuated by 72 watchtowers, enjoying a bird’s-eye view down onto the town’s age-old charm with restored courtyard homes, atmospheric temples, interesting museums, inviting guesthouses and lekker restaurants galore (albeit, all covered in the ubiquitous grey communist dust) and watching how locals hang laundry in Qing-dynasty courtyards, career down cobbled alleyways on bicycles and chew the fat with their neighbours - it all looked like a fantastic film set (e.g. for Zhang Yimou’s wonderful Raise the Red Lantern, which we later watched in our ancient guesthouse).

"Good or bad, it's all playacting. If you act well, you can fool other people; if you do it badly, you can only fool yourself, and when you can't even fool yourself, you just can fool the ghosts."

(The Third Concubine)

Elbowing for space with noisy hordes of hawking, burping, spitting, shouting and farting domestic tourists from all over the motherland and ticking off the must-see sights of historic Pingyao (three-day ticket/pass, only one visit per site permitted, for a stiff CNY 150.- or US$ 23.60 per person), both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a perfect example of a traditional Han Chinese city, thus exploring (i) the Confucian Temple, a huge complex where bureaucrats-to-be came to take the imperial exams, (ii) the Reshengchang Bank Museum, China’s first draft bank of 1823 CE, and (iii) the well-preserved 1346 CE yamen, the historic county government office which ruled the yang of the human world (…whereas the temples ruled the yin of the spiritual world).

Feasting on (vegetarian) traditional Pingyao food at Yi Ming's small restaurant +8613934419508, literally a civilised hole in the wall with only five tables, where we enjoyed the most delicious fare and always got excellent value for our money: e.g. (i) mala tofu (soft bean curd stewed with spicy Sichuan peppercorns) for CNY 8.- per generous helping, (ii) wan thu zhi (Pingyao special local noodles: a kind of round flat noodle that is rolled and dipped in dark vinegar sauce, dating back to the Qing dynasty) for CNY 12.- per plate, (iii) xiaomian kaolao (a staple food made from buckwheat and steamed in a wicker basket or a round storage box) for CNY 12.- per container, (iv) pan-fried leek dumplings dipped in dark Shanxi vinegar for CNY 10.- per set and (v) liang ban huang gua (pickled cucumber salad with sesame) for CNY 8.- per plate, all this accompanied by steamed rice for CNY 2.- per bowl and ice-cold local Shanxi Xinghuacun beer for CNY 5.- per 600-ml bottle; don't pay more.

Watching a local martial-arts competition which happened right outside the city wall’s South Gate, meeting friendly older folks who practised taichi and explained to us many of their graceful movements which always follow the dynamic yin-yang duality (e.g. male/female, active/passive, forceful/yielding) and, looking beyond the shiny facade, still bothering about the hard fate of the Falun Gong in Red China.

Taking one of the town’s ecofriendly golf-cart taxis to Pingyao's railway station (CNY 5.- per person) and thereafter the crowded overnight train no. 1095 (570 km, 10 ½ hours, CNY 70.- or US$ 11.- per person for “hard seats”) from Pingyao/Shanxi to 3,000-year-old Xian/Shaanxi (known as Chang'an in ancient times), (i) home of the famous terracotta warriors, (ii) eastern terminal of the myth-enshrouded Silk Road and (iii) undisputed root of Chinese civilization having served as the capital city for the Zhou, Qin, Han, and Tang dynasties.