All Walled In - The Ancient City of Pingyao

time2giver (45)in #photography • 7 years ago

What a place, as if modern day has never been able to penetrate the great walls surrounding Pingyao. A true city stopped in time, exactly the site i was expecting to see but still hard to believe.
Though the morning was slow waiting for 8 people to cycle through the one and only bathroom, we eventually made it up and out. The town by day was a mix of traditional buildings, temples, and courtyards coupled with the smoke and whining of motorbikes. Few vehicles are let into the walls due to the small streets and congestion it would cause so most of the traffic is made up of motor trikes, bicycles, foot traffic, stray dogs and the usual chickens.

Tickets to enter the many serene courtyards and temples of the town were a little steep but also gave us the opportunity to tour the city from above. The Walls are massive and in great shape. It felt like one could drive a bus up there and have no issues but avoiding the many detailed bronze statues that stand overlooking the city's everyday life. The view was a bit of a mix however, the new city sitting outside the walls contrasting the historical feeling with neon lights, tall bright coloured banners and concrete buildings. While the city within the walls, historical and full of character had a dingy underbelly hidden from below, but a face full of honesty from above. Camera well rested, we had fun with the walls and characters upon it. The bronze figures were incredibly well detailed and the scenes they create made for great photos though our period costumes were lacking. The walls are interrupted periodically with lookouts where a view across the exterior wall gave the opportunity to appreciate how cimposing the figure must have felt to an oncoming attacker standing in it's shadow.

The city was originally the center of banking for the Dynasties of its time and the protection of the wall allowed it to continue in that role for centuries. The many Temples were were filled with colourful depictions of mythological tales both good and evil and the architecture was inspiring to the mind. Both the interior and exterior design of the buildings showed a rich character of how serious the builders and architects of the time took their work and how proud they would be to see it still standing in such glory all this time later.

In the midst of our historic tour we were interrupted by some fellow travellers telling about the hardship in finding train tickets out of town. We booted over to the train station to investigate. It was sadly true that the busy season had sucked up all the tickets heading for Xi'ian our next stop on the adventure.

A sleeper car was out of the question at this point so 8 hours on an overnight hard seat was all we could hope for. The line was quite large and we had no idea what the schedule said or how to communicate our needs to the attendant. It was a hot mess, at the front of the line pointing and signalling and smiling with embarrassment and frustration. Until a young Chinese lifesaver leaned over and suggested he do the dealing on our behalf. It wasn't more than a few seconds later the clerk was printing off a fresh set of tickets for two of the last seats out of here. It was yet again the kind of miracle we've been blessed with since arriving in China. The spirit, kindness and willingness to help of strangers is a character trait deep within the Chinese culture and something we are eternally grateful for.

Back within the walls we continued our tour of the many picturesque courtyards in town, ringed by their own protective but inviting fences and signed with laughably bad english translated signs, but we very much appreciative of the effort. The day and night life in the small city are slow and steady. there were always people about but never lines or waiting. In fact we pretty much had the wall top to ourselves over the hours we were here. The restaurants were calm and the beers were cold.

There's a lot of folklore and tradition in the culture here and it's clearly evident by the donation boxes outside all the temples and the depictions of the artistry inside. One gate we came across had a story of jumping through the entrance would bring you riches otherwise described as turning a fish into a dragon. Fishes were thought of a peasants and Dragons as the elite and powerful of the time. And here I am trying to go from minnow to dolphin, Dragon would be quite the leap......... It's Time2giver