Pingyao

Day 326 (May 20, 2019) - Pingyao, Shanxi Province, China

Pingyao, located between Xi’an and Beijing, is claimed to be one of the best-preserved ancient cities in China. Because of this distinction we had high hopes for our visit, but unfortunately we left feeling a bit unimpressed. We should have known better by now. Anything with that kind of touristic honor was going to be crowded and over visited.

The quiet side streets of Pingyao were the real highlight for us.

Walking through one of the city wall gates.

Pingyao had much potential. A huge city wall encircles the old town, which is full of narrow streets and stone houses. Streets are lined with red lanterns and green trees outgrow their courtyards. My favorite experience in Pingyao was going for a walk one afternoon around the town and making an effort to get lost on all the side streets. These little deserted streets were places that people actually lived. Courtyards were filled with hanging laundry and parked scooters. Extra wood, construction materials, and old car tires were lying about. There were a few kids on bicycles that came by, but otherwise it felt like a very sleepy town were people were simply going about their lives.

Our experience on the side streets contrasted sharply with Pingyao’s main street, which was packed to the brim with tourists, shops, and restaurants. It was a hive of activity that was not all that distinguishable from the other ancient towns of Dali and Lijiang that we had visited previously. (Or even the Muslim Quarter of Xi’an.) The details of these places are different. They all sell different souvenirs, have a different type of food that you are supposed to try, and have different historical significances, but in general, after we saw the first one it was like we had seen them all. They all have the same feel. Noisy, crowded, and a bit artificial.

This was Pingyao's busy and crowded main street. Despite being the main attraction, we did everything we could to avoid having to walk down it.

Our culinary highlight from Pingyao was a fried eggplant dish. It was ridiculously good. It was essentially the Chinese eggplant version of the blooming onion. A large eggplant was partially sliced into rounds, battered, and deep fried. It was topped with a sweet sauce and soybeans. I can’t imagine how many calories it contains, but it was so good we returned a couple days later to get it again. Most of our meals in Pingyao were great, but that eggplant dish was something special. We also tried to check out some of the Chinese bars, but as we had found in Lijiang, they were crazy expensive, so we never stayed. Instead we frequented an expat bar. We may have been surrounded by westerners but at least the beer was affordable. And like Xi’an, Pingyao is firmly on the tourist trail, so we were certainly not the only foreign tourists around, unlike earlier in our travels. 

The amazing fried eggplant dish was in the center. We also had some dumplings and veggie balls.

While in Pingyao we were able to sort out most of our remaining travel plans for China. We still had some details to work through, but we had a better idea of what the next few weeks were going to look like. Back at the Pingyao train station on our last day we boarded a high-speed train for Beijing.