the long road to pingyao

with the hustle and bustle of beijing getting to us, and having seen most everything we wanted to see in the chinese capital, our traveling party split up sunday night and headed in opposite directions. actually, annette will be waiting in beijing another day before heading east by train to shanghai, from where she will wing it to chicago, and finally back home to minnesota. amanada, mom, and i, however, found ourselves in the beijing west train station on sunday night, tickets in hand for a trip of indeterminate length to pingyao, a cool old (ancient, actually) town with a 14th-century wall around the city center and lots of cool old buildings preserved within the wall.

we're here now, and we arrived just in time. another few minutes, and i think mom would have *definitely* have had enough of this trip. can't say i blame her, though: it was one of the more challenging train trips i've ever been on. consider this: we rode 12 hours packed into a train that made lots of local stops, and it was hot every time it stopped, and people were yelling in chinese lots of the way, and there were 128 people sitting just in our carriage, plus many more standing along the way. the train left an hour and a half late, so it didn't roll out of beijing until almost midnight, and arrived here at mid-morning. oh well - at least we only paid 43 yuan (about six bucks) for our tickets.

after such a journey, mom was understandably frazzled, but i think (hope) that this place will have a calming effect on her, because it's had one on me so far, and it is refreshingly different than beijing.

the trip was rough, no doubt, but mom and i were touched by random acts of kindness that we witnessed/benefited from. for instance, mom made her way into the carriage a few minutes ahead of me and amanada, who were lollygagging on the platform. a kind young man lifted mom's very heavy rolling duffel bag onto the racks above the seats for her, and when she was hot and trying to fan herself, he opened the window for her. he had a kind smile and i bet he was very nice. his girlfriend or wife or whoever slept with her head in his lap most of the way, and then, when we finally arrived in pingyao, the young man jumped up and pulled down her bag before i could even get a chance to do it.

we've seen many acts like this in china - people going out of their way to help me or mom or amanda or annette. but on the other hand, we've seen lots of not-so-chivalrous goings-on, like how if there was a husband and a wife on the crowded train, the man would sit while the woman stood most every time. that part, well, eh, not so good.

i slept as best i could on the train. the window next to me stayed open the whole way, which was all the better for the chinese guy across from me to surreptitiously sneak smokes when he thought the conductor wasn't looking. there were smoking areas at both ends of the carriage, but honestly, we were so packed into the train that it would have been hard for him to get there. using a look of facial disgust, however, i did persuade him to hold his lit cigarette outside of the window, instead of trying to hide it under the table between me and him, where i was in constant fear that he would inadvertently set my leg hair on fire.

i slept for five or ten minutes or a time, so it was a welcome relief when we arrived in pingyao and there was a lady there with a sign with my name on it (first and last, both spelled correctly, no less) to take us to the guesthouse. we loaded our luggage and ourselves onto a pair of motorcycle rickshaws (amanda and mom on one, me on the other) and set off across the cobblestone streets towards one of the five entrance gates spread around the old town walls. it was a fun ride, but vehicles weren't allowed past a certain point within the walls, so we had to wheel our luggage the final spurt.

but it was worth it, because the guest house is wonderful. like i said, all of the buildings in here are old, like 14th century. but our guesthouse has been retrofitted with modern restroom facilities (of the western variety - no squat toilet!) and a bed in my room that is (honestly) 6 feet by 10 feet. it is great. i've got to get one at home.

the rooms of the guesthouse (we got three singles - $14 apiece) and, well, pretty much the entire town, are covered in elaborate carvings and hand-painted scenes of ancient china, of concubines and emporers, peasants and oxcarts, temples and processions. the rooms are spread around a central courtyard which is filled with plants and has a big brass pot in the center of it in which swim lots of little goldfish.

we'll be staying here for a few days before heading out to xi'an and the terracotta warriors on wednesday or thursday. mom enjoyed our walk around the city in the afternoon (before a torrential thunderstorm rolled in, brightening the late afternoon sky with lightning). amanda and i are enjoying it, too. it's a good respite from beijing, and a great place to kick back and read a book before carrying on with the trip. they're even helping us book train tickets onward to xi'an.

and this time we'll get the expensive ones.