China - More Ancient Treasures
We had a 240km drive to our next destination - the ancient city of Yuxian. Before leaving we picked up some goodies in a nice bakery next to the hotel where we acquired some lovely fresh bread and pastels de nata. We have to say we're not keen on Chinese breakfasts which tend to be noodles, meat, veg and soups - just not what we fancy at the start of the day.
The roads were busy getting out of Beijing but it got calmer when we got off the expressway onto a scenic National Highway which climbed into the hills. We saw lots of cyclists enjoying the challenge of the hills. It felt like we were seeing a bit more of real China life outside the big modern cities that are full of high rises.-
At Yuxian Ancient City there are remnants of an old walled settlement, with traditional streets and historic architecture dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. We parked next to the walls of the old city and were immediately an attraction for all the Chinese tourists and other motorhomes parked there. They were definitely giving the Kazakhs a run for their money in the friendliness and generousity stakes. We were given watermelon by a lady from a chinese motorhome and dried apricots from the two young lads below who were very keen to look in Lolly and tak to us.
We enjoyed a walk around the Buddhist temple next to where we were parking.
We continued on into the old city where there were some very nice old buildings, including pagodas, city gates and pavillions. It had a lovely buzz to it in the late afternoon sun and the streets were lively with locals buying fruit and veg. We were quite taken with it after the big high rise cities.
We dined in a local restaurant where we wondered why the Chinese were so bad at using bins that are right next to them, and just throw their paper napkins on the floor. We have also noticed they order masses of food and leave much of. We understand when Chinese entertain people, if their guest finishes their dishes they think it means they have not provided enough food, but we don't like seeing the waste. We had more celebrity status in a mini market on our way back to Lolly where people asked for our photos and gave us cans of lemonade.
We could have easliy spent another day here enjoying the old town, but we had to get on the road for a 280km drive to Wutaisham.
It was a fairly scenic drive to Wutaisham Mountain which is one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China.
Wutaisham is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, although we were a bit surprised at the amount of tacky tourist infrastructure around such holy sites. Colin nearly failed the security checks to enter the park - his face obvioulsy doesn't match his passort now. In its heyday during the Tang Dynasty, Mount Wutai boasted over 300 temples, and while many have been lost over time, over 47 temples still remain today which is a testament to the mountain's continuing spiritual importance. Pilgrims from all over the world flock to Mount Wutai to pay homage to its sacred sites and seek spiritual enlightenment (or in Colin's case ask for Bolton Wanderers not to get thrashed at the weekend). We had to take quite a long bus ride to the main central area of temples where we visited several of the remaining Ancient temples along with crowds of pilgrims. There was such a calm serene atmospshere around the temples and we found a few spots to take a pew and take it all in.
There were Tibetan monks in some of the temples - one gave a good display of throat singing
We ended our visit with dinner at a burger restaurant called Dicos. It is China's answer to taking on KFC that was taking the country by storm in the 1990's. This particular outlet only served vegetarian food. If it’s good enough for the monks…..The food was definitely better than known burger chains.
We spent the night in the main car park which, as always, meant that we were in the company of lots of Chinese motorhomes.
The following day we had a 300km drive to Pingyao Ancient City which wasn’t the nicest drive. The national roads were full of big trucks and the expressways dragged on.
At a service area stop Olivia introduced us to Jianbing - a pancake with a layer of egg, spicy sauce,, vegetables, a sausage with lettuce, then a crispy wafer broken over it - a taste sensation!
She posted this photo to her friends who said we looked like cute animals. (They also said we looked alike which I’m obviously not too happy about).
It was a relief when we finally pulled up in the car park next to the city walls in Pingyao. Even before we were out of Lolly there were groups forming to take photos and ask questions. Olivia is starting to look weary at fielding all the questions.
Pingyao is an incredibly well preserved UNESCO World Heritage Site. Founded over 2,800 years ago it was renowned as the country's premier financial capital in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The city is completly enclosed by a 6km defensive wall that was bult in 1370.
It was a drizzly afternoon but we got our waterproofs on and had a walk into the old town to get our bearings for a more thorough visit the next day. It is a surprisingly large walled city where you can get lost meandering around the grids of streets. We saved visiting the historic buildings for the following day. The central streets became very lively at dusk with Chinese tourists. Although the central streets are very touristy it had a lovely feel to it with the ancient buildings and archways. We had a beer before heading back to dine in Lolly.
We were looking forward to a full day to explore the old city but the weather forecast for heavy rain was sadly correct. It had been raining heavily all night.
We spent the morning doing internet jobs in Lolly and catching up on home admin until the rain finally lightened around lunchtime. We got wrapped up in our waterproofs and headed back into the ancient walled city. It was surprisingly cold after the rain.
We had a coffee in a quirky cafe tucked away on a back street, then visited several historic sites - some ex government buildings, some temples and some wealthy businessmen’s homes. For once we enjoyed our over 60 status as we got into all the sites free.
We found a place to have a beer. While we were there we were enterrtained by a girl in the shop opposite who was handing out samplers of a spirit. She wasn't getting many takers, and we noticed that she was drinking more of them than she was handing out, then hiding the empty plastic cups so the shop owner couldn't see. She caught us grinning at her and looked a bit sheepish, but continued to keep having more of them. She seemed to be leaning against a wall as we left. We went on to have a nice dinner of local food in a popular restaurant nearby We think we're geting better at not overordering now.
The rain had just about held off all afternoon and evening and only restarted as we climbed back into Lolly.
It had been good to have a day off driving but we were ready to hit the road again the following day to see more of what China has to offer.
I’m still laughing at the ‘Bolton Wanders’ comment … some of those temples look amazing.