Docile Tourist

Pingyao, China

I reached my last destination in China. I'm now in the capital, Beijing, for a whole week.

It is important to know you have some time in front of you, sometimes, even if, lately, I told myself I should make shorter trips if I want to make it everywhere I am supposed to go.

I have to thank my Lonely Planet guidebook for a very important error in the China book. They wrote, in the first chapter, that the pandas reserve was in Chengde, near Beijing, while it is really near Chengdu, in the West... It means the time I planned to go there, from Beijing, will have to be used for something else. Still have to find out if there are interesting excursions from here.

That said, I'm really happy with my visit in Pingyao, a small city that is still surrounded by it's "original" wall. The old town, which is touristy, is charming and still looks old.

I got there around 7:30 in the morning, before the "real" tourists get out of bed. The time to see the real daily life under the chinese sun. And the tables full of junks the tourists buy. I stayed until 10:40 PM (thanks to a very late train), which gave me time to see the city after dark too.

I also had the "joy" of being scamed for the first, and I hope the last, time. While entering a temple, I ended with three incense sticks in my hands and I was told to pray. They told me I would get chance and protection from the taoists gods in exchance for some money. I knew I was getting scamed, but I didn't want to fight or to get in trouble. I gave them a little bit of money.

Finally, on another subject, there are a lot of expired products in the grocery stores. Now that I started to pay attention to the expiration date, I realize fresh food is rare. Tonight, we spent at least 10 minutes at the store trying to find fresh food. Didn't succeed.

Sometimes, it's better to know.