Pingyao is a beautiful, ancient, walled city that time – and the Red Guards – thankfully forgot.


Located roughly halfway between Beijing and Xi'an, it's one of best preserved ancient cities in China with striking architecture and small carless streets of cobblestone . Declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997, the city’s streets and storefronts look just like they did in the Ming dynasty.


Once a rich banking town in the Ming dynasty, it had luxurious homes, tall city walls and 72 watchtowers to defend them. One afternoon, we walked the full length of the 6-km of fortified walls. The walls are 12 metres high and from them you look down into the courtyards of the ancient houses – close to 4,000 original residences still remain. And just like in times of old, chickens, pigs and children run around in the small yards.


The main streets are closed to traffic during the day and they’re full of tourist traps, but the rest of the city is just as it was in 19th century with real houses and shops used by the locals. Donkey carts and bikes are the main mode of transportation on the streets during the day. At night, the streets are lit up with bright red lanterns. They illuminate the intricate wood latticework of the storefronts making this ancient city feel even older. You’re transported back to the time of the Ming.


During the day, fruit and vegetable vendors lay their crops out on the sidewalks and weigh purchases with old fashioned handheld scales . On a quiet side street, we bought some crispy donut-like snacks from a street vendor. Normally, we shun street food in China, but these were fresh out of the bubbling hot oil and hadn’t been handled or spoiled in any way. Much better than Crispy Crème.


We stayed at the Hotel Yide, a restored mansion. When we first arrived at the train station, it was late at night, and we had to walk down a dark, narrow alley full of motorbikes to get to our hotel, but the hotel was quite pretty and cosy.


All the rooms at the hotel were nicely hidden behind attractive wood doors that opened onto a central square or courtyard. We had to bolt the solid wood bedroom door from the inside with a wood bar to secure it for the night. Inside we had an extra large "kung" bed that stretched from wall to wall.


On warm sunny days we took our lunch outdoors in the courtyard, surrounded by lanterns, narrow alleyways, and rooms giving us the feeling that we were in the setting used for the "Raise the Red Lantern" movie, which was actually filmed in a private residence nearby (see photo attached) .


Sadly, Pingyao is right in the middle of a dirty, coal producing region and, like elsewhere in China, everyone in Pingyao uses coal for cooking and heating. Pollution from the coal burning clouds the air, turning it a depressing grey. It was so thick it choked us and covered everything in black dust. When we returned from our daily walks, we would wash up and the sink would turn black from the coal dust.


The other problem with Pingyao is its relative isolation. It's on the main rail line between Beijing and Xi'an and is easy to get to, but hard to get out of. You can't buy train tickets in advance where we boarded in the city of Taiyuan and Pingyao is allocated only a small number of tickets for passengers boarding the train at Pingyao going in either direction. The number of soft sleeper seats was limited to 12 and we couldn't get one for love nor money. A Frenchman we met actually hired a cab to drive him back to Beijing.


So we were basically stranded in this lovely, but polluted, walled city until our hotel owner intervened on our behalf and somehow managed to get tickets sent down from Taiyuan for a small, but well deserved, fee. After several days, we finally managed to catch a train out of Pingyao.


Nevertheless, we enjoyed our extended stay and this allowed us to spend some relaxing time visiting temples and ancient Chinese mansions around the general area of Pingyao.