A Journey to Well Known Places

Ping Yao is small. Part of this could be because it still has its original city wall, the only town left in China that can make that boast. That said, I rented a bike my first day and explored the entire area inside the walls in about 2 hours. The tourist area is comprised of three streets with vendors and restaurants lining each all the way to the car gates. Inside the tourist area is very neat. The eaves of the shops are all brightly painted and the store fronts are authentic restored ancient Chinese. I have pictures. I will post them later. Promise. Outside the tourist area is less exciting…everything is kind of a dull beige and a bit run down. There is nothing to do and no where to go. Perfect. I stayed for three nights. That might have been a bit of over kill, but I wanted to soak up the experience. Chinese tourist (Golden Week) holiday ended this monday. There was an immediate 75% reduction in the crowds on the street. Finally, the Chinese have gone back to work and left the tourist sites to the people with passports. Whew…glad that is over. Off to Xian next. I hear good things about it.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 5:43 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.