So, it was a long way to drive for dinner, like about twenty thousand miles from Portugal, or even longer from California or Belgium where our expedition truck rolled off the ship into Europe. After all that driving we could not leave Beijing without enjoying the famous Peking Duck, a dish as iconic to Beijing as sour dough bread from San Francisco.

Peking Hung Duck

According to the Beijing official web site, the dish is called Peking Duck, Beijing Duck or simply Chinese roast duck among other names. It was first served during the Yuan Dynasty (1271 to 1368), a time when the Mongol Emperors ruled China. Sounds like a dish Genghis Khan would order. Its real history goes back as far as the Southern and Northern dynasties. In 1330 a cookbook written by a royal dietary physician by the name of Hu Sihui included such elaborate preparations as roasting the duck inside the stomach of a sheep.

Green insisted on eating Peking Duck Head

Green insisted that she get the head. Like chicken heads you might recall, she believed eating the head gives you more brain power.

Quanjude Restaurant, Beijing

Forget the sheep. The Peking duck is still a dish few chefs would dare to duplicate. First, white-feathered ducks are raised in a free-range environment for 45 days, after which they are force-fed for 15 to 20 days. Once slaughtered, plucked, gutted, washed, and boiled, air is pumped under the skin so that it separates from the fat. Next, the duck is hung to dry and coated with maltose syrup to make the skin extra crispy.

The duck is then roasted in one of two ways: by heat in a brick oven or by hanging the bird from a hook and roasting it over a fire, no doubt using a special wood. We made reservations at the highly recommended Quanjude restaurant that uses the wood fire method invented by its founder, Yang Quanren. “Solly”, “no varet palking”. According to Green, it was the original restaurant serving the delicacy. There are at least 10 other establishments in the city that feature the famous dish. We were surprised that we did not get a roasted duck on a platter. Instead, the duck is expertly carved and elegantly served, all sliced and ready to eat, along with traditional sauces and condiments. Being dark meat anyway, it was bound to be moist. It melted in our mouths and was not overly smoked. Green insisted that she’ll get the head. Like chicken heads you might recall, she believed eating the head gives you more brain power. So popular is this custom that there were plenty of extra heads to be ordered. She had two and already seemed wiser.

This was exactly how we wanted to end our short visit to Beijing.

Very full and satisfied that we had seen what we wanted to see in Beijing, it had been a long day. The tram ride back to our parking lot and Green’s hostel was short. We would make an early start heading north to Mongolia. Shipping our truck from China was not recommended. Sitting in the customs storage lot for weeks in the salt air invited damage and theft. In any case, we had a new “bucket list”: Ride a camel in the Gobi Desert and attend the Golden Eagle hunting festival in the remote town of Olgii, with a brief stop in the capital of Ulaanbaatar to get necessary Russian visas and re-visit this rapidly changing city. We had not been there since 1996.

Much of the historic areas of this 3,000-year old city have been destroyed to build modern condos and apartments that are often financially impossible for the average citizen. Green, our guide, described the older apartment she and her mother live in. Maybe it had running water and maybe electricity most of the time. It was prone to flooding. She explained that older Chinese living in these rundown buildings or houses cannot afford to modernize them. They are just hoping that a big development company will buy them out so they can move into something better, maybe one of those high-rise buildings we saw across the country. To our amazement, Green also explained that even if someone can afford to buy one of the new apartments or condos, they only actually own it for 75 years. After that time, regardless of who’s living in it, the original owners or their descendants, the apartment or condo goes back to the government. Pretty strange, huh?

As the sun went down, the lights came up and the beautiful lanterns added to the reflection on the rain-dampened streets.

Hutong and Siheyun

In any case, Hutongs were a part of northern Chinese cities and particularly Beijing we wanted to see for ourselves. The original term “Hutong” (which is of Mongolian origin meaning “water well”) appeared under Genghis Khan’s grandson reign, Kublai Khan, first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1341) and refers to a narrow street or alley. In residential areas, the Hutongs wind between unique designs of homes called Siheyuan, meaning “a courtyard surrounded by buildings on all four sides”.

Doors opened up into little courtyards and kitchens. These old homes are where real people work and live.

During the build-up and modernization starting in mid-20^th century and also before the 2008 Summer Olympics, many Hutong neighborhoods gave way to new roads and modern apartment blocks. The Siheyuan have a history of two thousand years and were first established in the Zhou Dynasty (1027-256 BC) dividing residential areas according to social classes. They exhibit outstanding and fundamental characteristics of Chinese architecture and serve as a cultural symbol of Beijing and a window into its old ways of life. Fortunately, many of Beijing’s ancient Hutong neighborhoods still stand, and a number of them have been designated protected areas and are becoming major tourist attractions. The photos here will take you on a short walk through a Beijing not always seen by outsiders.

A Nostalgic Side of Beijing

As we wandered through the old alleys where real people work and live we saw a nostalgic side of China. Only the occasional tourist on a bike taxi reminded us where we were. Sagging doors opened up into little courtyards. The narrow streets were not even wide enough for a normal car. Electrical and phone connections looked like a can of worms, and along with natural gas, they were run overhead like we saw in Russia. Nevertheless, many people prefer this old style of life compared to the new hustle and bustle of modern Beijing.

Returning to the more popular tourist streets, the selection of different foods was interesting but not always appetizing. Green found a nice little greasy spoon café where we enjoyed some spicy rice and noodles. Yummy things for snacks and desserts were everywhere, but least we ruin our appetite, we settled for a good cup of Starbucks coffee. The crowds of umbrellas thinned and we window-shopped. As a damp blanket of darkness enveloped the city, hiding some of the ugly parts, the glittering lights of stores and restaurants sparkled off the wet pavement. Soon it will be time for dinner, and Green knew where the original Peking hung duck was waiting for us.

Moving on, we passed through the Tiananmen Gate to reach the Forbidden City. There are five massive doors to the gate and seven bridges spanning moats or streams. It was from this Gate on October 1, 1949 that Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic China. The dominating portrait of Mao is a must photo background opportunity for Chinese selfies.

The Forbidden City

The largest stone carving in the palace, it is 16.75 meters, (60 ft), long, 3.07 meters, (12 ft), wide, and 1,7 meters, (5.5 ft), thick. It has beautiful interlocking lotus patterns, curling waves and nine dragons. It was transported from the quarry 36 km, (22 miles), away by sprinkling water on the road to make an “ice road”. It was then pulled and slid all the way to the palace where it was carved.

The Forbidden City is the former Chinese Imperial Palace from the Ming and Qing dynasties (1420-1912). It covers 178 acres. It’s called The Forbidden City because during those dynasties, when it was home to 24 different emperors and their households who ruled all of China for almost 500 years, ordinary people were not allowed in without special permission. The main palace took 20 years and one million workers to finish.

Marco Polo’ Silk Road travels ended in Beijing

On a side note: In 1215, Zhongdu, the capital of the Jurchen Jin dynasty located in todays Beijing, was destroyed by Genghis Khan, the Mongol ruler. In 1271, a year after his grandson, Kublai Khan, established the Yuan Dynasty that ruled over present-day Mongolia, China, Korea and some adjacent areas, he presumed the role of Emperor of China, the first non-Han emperor to conquer all of China. He built his new winter capital in another section of Beijing. Marco Polo and his dad & uncle left Venice (Italy) the same year to travel to China along the Silk Road (much of which we followed). Three and a half years later, Kublai Khan invited them to his palace where they lived for 24 years before returning home. Marco Polo called the capital “Cambulac” but because Kublai Khan encouraged diversity in his vast empire of many different languages and religions, the capital was also called Khanbalik or Dadu. In 1368, Camulac was destroyed by an emperor of the Ming Dynasty though The Forbidden City was not built until 1420.

The Palace Museum

The Forbidden City has been transformed into the “Palace Museum”, quite literally a museum of palaces and special halls, and it is open to the public. Some 14 million visit it annually. It is the world’s largest palace complex, consisting of many buildings with a rumored original 9,999 rooms. It is protected by a 20-ft deep and 171-ft wide moat, and a 26-ft high wall. Most of the palace rooms can only be seen from the outside. Without walking with our nose in a guidebook, we were impressed by the excess of beautiful carvings, paintings and gold surrounding thrones having been used by the ruling emperors and their princesses. The numerous cast figures of dragons, lions and monster turtles were intriguing. Their purpose was to guard against fire and evil spirits. The architecture was amazing, with each detail having a symbolic meaning. The best we can do is show you what caught our eye. Captions will give some details.

After spending much of the day wandering from one palace or hall to another, we were ready for a late lunch. Green, our wonderful guide, spotted the perfect greasy spoon. Nearby we found an entry into a neighborhood called a Hutong, a special part of Beijing we wanted to visit. See more on Beijing Part 3 (China # 24).

B E I J I N G! Over twenty-one million people, plus or minus a few thousand tourists. We had completed our second goal of driving from the Atlantic to the Pacific, wheels on the ground, and now our first goal to follow the Silk Road and on to its final end in Beijing.

Formerly romanized as Peking, it was strategically located and developed to be the residence of the Emperor and the Imperial Capital. Beijing is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. It has seven UNESCO WORLD Heritage Sites and a history stretching back 3 millennia.

TIANANMEN SQUARE

In “Beijing” do as the visitors do.

If you had a month you could not see all of this city, any more than you see all of Paris or Moscow in 30 days. We had one day, so we had to be selective. Short list: Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, the old Hutong neighborhoods, and of course, to enjoy a famous Peking Hung Duck dinner. Oh yeah, a lunch at one of those questionable hole-in-the-wall cafés for a good bowl of spicy fresh noodles or rice.

We had been lucky to find a guarded parking lot somewhere inside one of the several ring roads, not too far from the city center and close to public transportation, which is surely the only way to get around in the chaotic traffic.

According to Green, it is especially the older peoples’ dream to visit Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City once in their lifetime.

With an early start in light rain, which thankfully cleared much of the choking smog, we arrived at Tiananmen Square. Preparations were under way for the Chinese National Holiday on October 1, the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Celebrations are from October 1-7 and called “The Golden Week”. Thousands of people had already gathered for photo opps and sightseeing. Tiananmen Square’s massive slab of concrete, the size of 143 soccer fields, is capable of holding a million people.

There was no sign of protests nor were there any tanks, an image we may all be familiar with when on June 4^th 1989, a young Chinese man, carrying his shopping bag, stood in front of a column of tanks in protest and was run over. During that demonstration by the People’s Pro-Democracy Liberation Army, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters, killing an estimated 180 to 10,454 people. (Wikipedia)

We wandered around, people watching, one our favorite pastimes, noting that we’re all being watched by dozens of cameras. We were used to this surveillance. It’s part of traveling in China. All in all impressive, but underwhelming. The walls of the Forbidden City loomed in the background accented by the portrait of Mao Zedong. See Beijing, Part 2 coming up.

We had seen the Great Wall of China twice now, and our China “bucket list” was getting short. We headed east toward the fog-draped Pacific Ocean and its polluted Bay of Bo Hai, where Tanggu, the nearest port to Beijing is located. Green, our trusted guide and constant companion, had no idea of how to get to the water’s edge, and our two Garmin GPS, one in English and Green’s in Chinese, were not a big help. All we knew was that we had to find a way around the mega metropolis of Beijing. Weaving through various ring roads and turning east at every opportunity, we eventually started to see salt flats, ships and loading docks. By luck, we ended up in the Binhai Amusement Park area where we found a run-down jetty sticking out into grey water. It seemed like a tourist spot where Chinese who had maybe never seen the ocean came.

Our Goal to drive from the Atlantic to the Pacific,

wheels on the ground, was finally completed!

Our goal to drive from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the legendary Silk Road was finally completed!

We had made it!! After driving continuously for 12 months across all of Eurasia (Europe and Asia) through 13 countries, Ocean to Ocean, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Portugal to China, wheels on the ground, following the legendary Silk Road, with stops, however brief, in some of the most exciting and intriguing cities in the world, we had finally accomplished our goal. Along the way, by sheer chance, we met a young girl in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan that changed her life, and ours, forever. There will be more about her soon.

Now back to business. Our Chinese visa would expire in just a few days and we dared not be late. A few quick photos and we headed back into the chaotic traffic of one of the largest city in the world, Beijing. Green actually had an address of a hostel where she could stay and we miraculously found a muddy parking lot that reluctantly made a space for us. It was raining; a godsend in this very polluted Chinese Capital. It cleared much of the smoke and smog that can be choking at times.

We celebrated with a glass of “Great Wall” wine and hit the street for dinner, easy to find in a city this big.

We had seen the Western Terminus of the Great Wall of China back on our China Blog # 8, but being one of the main tourist attractions in the country, we wanted to see more of it. Hey, we drove all this way, why not? We had seen the photos of the hordes of tourists shuffling along the wall like a pack of sardines, so we were expecting the crowds. In 2017 more than 10 million tourists visited the wall, making it one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions.

The Great Wall of China at Mutianyu

To our amazement, we had the Great Wall all to ourselves!

It was late afternoon at the Mutianyu Great Wall entrance and the parking lot was nearly empty. All the big tour busses were gone. We found a perfect flat place to park—like anywhere—and a nice soft grassy area right behind us for Green’s tent.

This section of the Great Wall was built in a unique way. There were three watchtowers. Forts were constructed on the steep mountain sides. The northwest part of the wall was precariously constructed along the 3,280-foot, (1,000 m), high mountain ridge. The “Arrow Rock” and “Flying Eagle” sections were built into precipitous cliffs. Legend says that a magic dragon swooped down and marked the route for the wall.

The Great Wall at Mutianyu stretched as far as the eye could see.

Walking to the entry, we took the gondola to the top and stepped onto the wall, and no one was around. Really!! We had the whole wall to ourselves. There was a little mist in the air, adding to the mysterious and moody presence of this giant man-made piece of architecture. A light jacket would have taken the chill out. We knew the gondola would close before we were finished looking around, but there was a nice flagstone trail back to the parking lot. We wandered along the wall for a couple of hours until it was almost dark. Amazing! (Sorry, that word keeps coming up.)

The “WALL” is 31,070 miles (50,000 km) long. Just for comparison, the Earth’s circumference is 24,901miles, (40,074 km). The wall is 25 feet high in places and 15 to 30 feet wide. It took over 2,000 years to be constructed by several dynasties. Some historical records estimate that it took 300,000–500,000 soldiers to build and guard it, along with another 400,000–500,000 conscripted laborers, convicts, unemployed intellectuals and disgraced noblemen. One report suggests that there were 1.5 million men working during the peak building time of the Qui Dynasty. The Ming dynasty spent 200 years constructing their section of the wall, building paved turreted walls and towers that served as highways to move troops. Although it may be an insignificant thought, all of these men and women had to eat, sleep and go to the bathroom!

We were tempted to just keep on walking to see what’s over the next ridge.

It has been estimated that up to one million died working on the wall, and many were buried within the wall itself. (Sounds like Siberia’s infamous “Road of Bones” we drove in 1996.) 

During its construction, the Great Wall of China was called “the longest cemetery on earth”. Along the way, the Chinese invented the wheelbarrow. That must have been a big help!

Photographing the wall is challenging. It’s not particularly colorful, and it does not move, but the photos here we hope will give you some impression of its scope as it snakes up and down the ridge tops.

Just for fun, we thought we would look at a comparison of the now infamous Trump’s “big beautiful wall”. It would span only 700 miles of the US-Mexico border’s 2,000 miles. According to sources by Wall Street Journal, it would cost $18 billion to build. Others calculated more like $21 billion. Granted, Trump’s original plan of walls as high as 65 feet have morphed to 18 to 30 feet. Based on the fact that it took six years to build the roughly 700 miles of fence and barriers now in place, engineering experts agree the wall would most likely take years to complete.

The Great Wall of China is 31,070 miles (50,000 km) long.

All this is complicated by the fact that there are not enough skilled laborers to do the work. Of the 12 sites proposed for the wall, each might require something like 144 employees to feed people, 96 food trucks, 240 private security guards, a hundred legal positions and 5,000 border patrol. Did we count porta potties? As the numbers add up, all 12 projected sites might create 10,500 jobs. Where can they get that many workers? OH!!! How about all the Central Americans who want to come over and work, and while they’re here, they could help rebuild the East Coast that just got devastated by hurricane Florence, and of course, there is a great need of labor in Southern California that slid into the ocean, and the horrible fires of Santa Rosa, Mendocino and Sonoma that are still smoldering. What a great idea! Cheap foreign labor!

Back to the other Great Wall, despite all the money and human cost of building it, and despite efforts to defend it using all the most sophisticated weapons of the time, including axes, sledge hammers, lances, crossbows, halberds and the latest Chinese invention, gun powder, the Mongol invaders led by Genghis Khan, (“universal ruler”), had no problem going around the wall and subsequently conquering most of northern China between A.D. 1211 and 1223 from where they ruled all of China until 1368. Wall? What wall? At least it did provide some protection to the Silk Road we had been following. From the misty towers of the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, we could almost smell the salt air of the Yellow Sea, the second goal of The Turtle Expedition’s Trans-Eurasian Odyssey; to drive from the wave-torn rocky cliffs of Cabo da Roca in Portugal, the most western point in continental Europe and in fact, the most western point of the Eurasian landmass, all the way to the Pacific, wheels on the ground through 23 countries.

So, if you were driving into London to see the fabulous Saint Paul’s Cathedral, you might be shocked to realize that it had been completely carved out of a sandstone cliff. Well, welcome to China and Buddhism. As we walked toward the entrance of the Yungang Grottoes, an ancient Chinese Buddhist temple near the city of Datong, we could not help but be amazed (once again). We were staring up at one of the three most famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China and an extraordinary example of rock-cut architecture.

Green is standing in front of the largest outdoor Buddha at the Yungang Grottoes.

The site is located in the valley of the Shi Li river at the base of the Wuzhou Shan mountains. They encompass examples of stone carvings from the 5th and 6th centuries AD. There are 53 major caves, along with 51,000 niches housing the same number of Buddha statues. Additionally, there are around 1,100 minor caves. A Ming Dynasty-era fort is still located on top of the cliff housing the Yungang Grottoes.

The sandstone cliff is about 2600 feet long and 30 to 60 feet high. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, they are considered to be a masterpiece of early Chinese Buddhist cave art. Buddhism arrived in this location via travel on the ancient Northern Silk Road, a route that traders followed for over 1,600 miles, connecting the then capital of Xián to the west all the way to Kashgar, where we had started our journey nearly a month ago near the border of Kyrgyzstan.

The figures carved out of sandstone and painted inside the grottoes were exquisite.

There were three periods of construction and reconstruction, the first one ending in 465 AD. Second and third phases lasted until 525 AD. That’s 60 years! Sometime after 1060, a fire did extensive damage. Wooden buildings in front of caves 5 & 6 were constructed in 1621 and in the 1950s, cracks in the sandstone were sealed with grouting. Being open to the pollution from nearby cities and sand storms coming all the way from the Gobi Desert, it has been an uphill battle to preserve these ancient treasures.

Of the 53 major caves, not all are open to the public. Some caves are divided into front and rear chapels. Many are beautifully painted, but have been repainted as many as twelve times. Cave #6 was one of the most impressive. Constructed between 465 and 494 AD by Emperor Xiao Wen, the cave’s surface area is approximately 1,000 square meters. The entire interior of the cave was carved and painted. More Buddhas, monks, Bodhisattvas and other celestial figures were located in the second story.

This is what you feel like after holding up a building for a few hundred years. Does anyone have an aspirin please?

Caves 7-12, had more representations of bodhisattvas, triads of the Buddha, flying apsarasas (heavenly beings), heavenly musicians and jatakas, (stories from the lives of historical Buddhas), and ornamental reliefs covering the walls, ceilings and entrance.

If you want to be even more amazed, as we were, take into consideration that if you have ever been to the Vatican in Rome and walked through the Sistine Chapel and realized that Michelangelo painted those magnificent detailed images 500 years ago. Wow! Now we look at images in the Yungang Grottoes and consider that they were not only painted, about 1,500 years ago, but also first had to be carved out of solid stone. Double wow!

Back on the road, we altered from super toll-road to more interesting small towns. To our relief, heavy traffic was going the other way. We were able to pick up some supplies at produce stands along the road. Our goal was to get a closer look at The Great Wall of China, which we had previously seen the Western Terminus of. We expected more crowds this time.

After a wonderful quiet night in our “private” parking lot, we walked up to the entrance of the Hunyan Hanging Monastery. We had seen many religious sites as we traveled across Europe and Central Asia, but never one hanging from a cliff. It was amazing to see Hunyan hanging 246 ft, (75-metre), above the ground. The temple is famous not only for its location on a sheer precipice but also because it is the only existing site with the combination of all three Chinese traditional religions: Buddhism, Taosim and Confucianism. Spindly oak poles and crossbeams chiseled into the vertical cliff hold it up. Additional supportive structures are buried inside the bed rock. Back in 2010 Time magazine listed it as one of the ten most dangerous buildings in the world.

Buddhism, Taosim and Confucianism

Three traditional Chinese Religions under one Roof

With all the flat land in China, one must wonder why someone would build a temple on the sheer side of a mountain.

According to legend, one man, a monk named Liaoran, started the project back around 471 AD. We can only imagine what his vision was. The overhanging summit offered some protection from rain erosion and sunlight, and thanks to the ongoing repair by many of the various following dynasties, colors of the statues and the walls in the temples are relatively well preserved.

There are 40 halls and pavilions, linked by wooden walkways and stairs. To our relief, the stairs were well reinforced with metal plates and for those suffering acrophobia, there were handrails.

Looking for more Buddhas, (not really), our next stop was a short hop on a toll road to the equally impressive Yungang Grottoes. Circling the city of Datong, (population over 3.5 million), the blocks of high-rise apartments and coal power generating plants told us we were getting closer to civilization than we like.

Certainly one of the amazing pleasures of traveling across a country like China is discovering the “amazing”. The Terra-Cotta Warriors, amazing. The Great Wall of China, amazing. Driving out of Pingyáo and smiling at the angry looking turtles straining under the lamp posts, we were prepared for something else amazing, the Sakyamuni Pagoda of the Fogong Temple of Ying County, Shanxi Province.

The almost 1,000 year old wooden
Sakyamuni Pagoda of the Fogong Temple

Built in 1056 (that’s almost one thousand years ago!) during the Khitan-led Liao Dynasty, the Pagoda was commissioned by Emperor Daozong of Liao at the site of his grandmother’s family home. Some records show it was funded and erected by a Buddhist monk named Tian.

Yes, even we take the occasional tourist souvenir shot.

Standing on a 4 m (13 ft) tall stone platform, its steeple is 10 m (33 ft) tall, and its top reaches a total height of 67.31 m (220.83 ft). 

The nine stories tall Sakyamuni Pagoda is the oldest existing fully wooden Pagoda still standing in China.

From the exterior, the Pagoda seems to have only five stories and two sets of rooftop eaves for the first story, yet the Pagoda’s interior reveals that it has nine stories in all. The four hidden stories can be seen from the exterior by the Pagoda’s terraced balconies. The windows on the eight sides of the Pagoda provide views of the countryside. More amazing is how it was built. It features fifty-four different kinds of bracket arms in its construction. Between each outer story of the Pagoda is a mezzanine layer where the bracket arms are located on the exterior.

Dougong Construction
A complex set of interlocking wooden parts

The technique is called Dougong, a complex set of interlocking parts. It was widely used in the ancient Chinese During-the-Spring-and-Autumn-Period (770–476 BC) and further developed to its peak in the Tang and Song periods. The pieces are fitted together by joinery  alone, without glue or fasteners, thanks to the precision and quality of the carpentry. No nails were used! “amazing”

This fierce looking guard was protecting the entrance.

Walls in these structures are not load-bearing. Curtain walls were sometimes made of latticework, mud or other delicate material. Walls functioned to delineate spaces in the structure rather than to support weight.

Multiple interlocking bracket sets are formed by placing a large wooden block (dou) on a column to provide a solid base for the bow-shaped brackets (gong) that support the beam or another gong above it. The function of dougong is to provide increased support for the weight of the horizontal beams that span the vertical columns or pillars by transferring the weight on horizontal beams over a larger area to the vertical columns. This process can be repeated many times, and rise many stories. Adding multiple sets of interlocking brackets or dougong reduces the amount of strain on the horizontal beams when transferring their weight to a column. Multiple dougongs also allows structures to be elastic and to withstand damage from earthquakes.

Sakyamuni Pagoda
(Almost) Earthquake-proof Construction

Between the years of 1056 and 1103 the Sakyamuni Pagoda suffered through seven earthquakes with only minor damage. Repairs were needed after Japanese soldiers shot more than two hundred rounds into the Pagoda during the Second Sino-Japanese War. 

Hope you are as amazed by this Pagoda as you look at these photos from the outside and the inside. Our next stop was only a short drive away. Climbing into the multi-layered Wuzhou Shan mountains, we were anticipating the famous Yungang Grottoes, also quite “amazing”!

OK, Pingyáo was not on our list of “must see” places as we traveled across China. At the time, our primary Lonely Planet China guide book did not even mention it, but once again our personal guide, Green, knew better. To our pleasure and amazement, Pingyáo is China’s best-preserved ancient walled city. Moreover, it is not some made-up tourist attraction. Thousands of local residents live here, down narrow alleys and behind creaking wooden doors that lead into courtyards where laundry was hung to dry, bicycles leaned against ancient rock walls and locals gossiped in the sun.

Pingyáo – a reflection of old China

While most of the historical sections that were once part of other cities we had seen had been bulldozed and replaced with ugly block buildings and grey apartments, Pingyáo has managed to keep its old spirit intact.

As we strolled the ramparts of the amazing ancient city of Pingyáo, we had to snap a couple of memory shots.

Walking along the ramparts of the magnificent city walls gave us a mosaic of tile rooftops and a private look into backyards. A unique birds-eye view of some of the wonderful old buildings including the Confucius Temple, the City God Temple and a Taoist Temple. Back on street level, there were doorways to peak into and bronze statues that depicted the history of the old financial center back in 1823. Roof peaks and arches were elaborately adorned with carved or sculpted dragons and other symbolic images.

Strolling on top of Pingyáo’s massive wall gave us an interesting bird’s eye view of the old city.

The city center was free of cars, with bicycles and electric scooters taking locals to where they needed to go. Interesting foods were everywhere to tempt us, as well as souvenirs. The city is famous for its beautiful lacquerware.

Despite being somewhat of a tourist town, (predominantly Chinese – we only saw two Westerners), the local people were uncommonly friendly, and not the norm in China, even the bathrooms were clean and where they should be—except for the young children who still didn’t need one.

This beautiful gate is one of the main entrances into Pingyáo.

After strolling the streets for a day to visit some of the temples and historic sights, we were both ready for a relaxing foot and leg massage, a specialty along the pedestrian mall. We found a quiet restaurant to enjoy an early dinner. Later we treated ourselves to a fabulous folkloric dance and show depicting the history of this ancient city. It was called “又见平遥” (Youjian Pingyáo – See Pingyao Again). At night, Pingyáo took on new personality. Temples were lit and streets were hung with colorful lanterns.

We spent a quiet night in front of Green’s hotel. Pingyáo would be one of the few places we stayed for two nights, one of our favorite stops along what we imagined may have been part of the New Silk Road leading to Beijing and the busy ports of the Yellow Sea.

Note: We couldn’t resist posting all the photos below to give you a better impression of fabulous Pingyáo.