Pingyao to Beijing, China

This segment we traveled from Pingyao to Beijing. That morning we got up at around 5:00 am to catch a train to our connection city, Taiyuan (The first train has to go through Taiyuan so that we can catch the bullet train to Beijing). The traditional hotel we stayed at in Pingyao had a huge door for the entrance and when we left early in the morning it was locked! The most frustrating thing about the door being locked was that I had told the front desk the day before that we had to leave early! (Traveled June 2012)

After knocking and banging on the door for a good 15 minutes I started talking louder to get the attention of the front desk guy who was there but sleeping. Finally someone did come and open the door for us but for a second I was actually worried (I was not about to miss my train to Beijing because I was locked inside of my hotel… that would have been a hell of a story wouldn’t it).

So after losing 15 minutes we made it out and it was nice to see Pingyao empty from tourist. Only a few Chinese people doing their morning stretches and walking around. To get to the train station we had to leave the city walls and walk about a mile to the train station (around 15 minutes away).

Surprisingly the train station was not total mayhem. From the body language of others we realized that when our train was about to leave it would be called for us to queue up. When the woman called our train we made our way to where we had to show our tickets and then we had to go wait in “lines” on the platform. It’s a very weird concept to wait in these “organized” lines but when the train arrives everybody just scatters away from the lines because the doors don’t open right where the queues are. We found this exists a lot in China… they make lines for no reason or just make a line to not follow them anyways. It’s supposed to look structured and ordered but in reality it’s everybody for themselves.

When we get on the train we realized that when we bought our tickets we had seats that were assigned printed on our ticket. But we can’t read Chinese and couldn’t tell which number is for the cabin and which is for the seat. We found out that we were definitely in the wrong train cabin. We also realized that normal trains in China are very very crowded. We stood for the hour and half train ride to Taiyuan. And when you have your huge backpack on it gets kind of frustrating with people bumping into you as they go up and down the aisles. It’s annoying!

Pingyao to Taiyuan

Our Bullet Train to Beijing

So we stand the whole time, it’s hot and we are already tired since we didn’t get much sleep from the night before. The train arrives at Taiyuan station and we have less than an hour before our next train leaves for Beijing.

We quickly grab some Chinese McDonalds at the Taiyuan Train Station (normally I wouldn’t eat McDonalds but sometimes that is the only or best option). And then we waited in this long line to get on our next train… Everything seems like a huge long line in China. Luckily it was moving fast and we get on our bullet train relatively easy. The train was surprisingly spacious and we each had our own seat. It was worlds away from our last train…

The ride from Taiyuan to Beijing is 3 hours and speeds along through mountains and hills. It’s a great way to travel since it’s cheap, fast and relatively comfy. For about 15 dollars you also get a view of the Chinese country side before arriving to Beijing.

After arriving in Beijing you will be shocked about how big the Beijing West Train Station is… and how many people are there!

The taxis are very organized in the Beijing Train Station. Once you get off the train you head down to where the taxis lines are and you have to wait in line to get your taxi. People cut in China… This is just how it is and I’m pretty sure we got cut in line multiple times. Whatever. But as a whole this system really worked out quite well. First impression of Beijing is that it’s very orderly and modern.

After we get our taxi we had to tell our taxi driver where our hotel was which he had no idea even when we gave him the address in Chinese… it’s pretty frustrating. He asked if we had a map of Beijing so we could see where the hotel was. Really isn’t that cabbie 101… aren’t you suppose to know where hotels are!? So luckily I had looked at a map before I left for Beijing, kind of realized where we were and we eventually did find the hotel.

And after staying in lower end hotels… The Park Plaza Beijing West was a real step up… Finally reliable running water… a working hotel and ample amount of space! Oh and a huge bed!

I was still sick and it was nice to have a working toilet that was in really nice bathroom. :/ The first day in Beijing we were pretty tired and we had arrived in Beijing in the afternoon. Really the hotel looked quiet decent to just rest for a bit and we didn’t want to push ourselves. We decided the only thing we were going to do is to go see the Olympic Village, which will be part of my next article so stay tuned…!