Back in Shanghai

Arrived back in Shanghai yesterday evening. We had a very hard time trying to buy train tickets from Pingyao back to Shanghai. As the days progressed we kept being told to try tonight, try tommorow morning, and so on. We actually tried to buy all of the tickets in Beijing. But from there you can only buy tickets from Beijing to your destination. It's much easier to get a seat or a hardsleeper ticket - but we're not going 24hrs on a train like that!

Considering we're flying to Japan on the 8th, and especially considering the train takes 24hours from Pingyao to Shanghai and there is no gaurantee of getting tickets, we had little choice but to opt for a flight. We couldnt book flights from Pingyao so decided to head off to the nearest airport as soon as we could after our tour of Pingyao with Mr Liu. With his help (including several people chasing and stopping the bus which had already headed off) we jumped onto a bus headed for the difficult-to-pronounce city of Tauyuan.

I believe this area - Shaanxi Province - is a very large producer of coal. The state of the atmosphere really shows it. I've never been in such a polluted environment. Visibility is little more than maybe a kilometer. The air has more of a gritty, sooty smell than a carbon monoxide car-pollution one. During what should be a clear sunny day the sky is basically white - very bright on the eyes. Also very hard to take decent photos as well, I guess due to the highly diffused white light. This was the case in Pingyao, but in Tauyuan it seemed much more dense.

Hopped off at the bus depot in Tauyuan after a two hour ride armed with Mr Liu's handwritten instruction for the taxi driver, and after a short drive found ourselves at the airport.

We're going to take it easy in Shanghai - recharge the batteries in preparation for Japan.