Pingyao Transportation

It's not hard to get to Pinyao, but leaving can be a problem. Aparently, there is a some difficulty in getting train tickets out of Pingyao because the ticket mongers have sewn up the market on tickets and one cannot buy them in the Pingyao train office. You can take a bus, to Xi'an, for instance but they are expensive and you obviously can't take a hard or soft sleeper. It's so nice to sleep on an overnight train. So you have to go through your guesthouse who will also charge a commision over the ticket mongers commision. They have to call ahead and buy the ticket. They will give you a receipt for the ticket, but the conductor on the train might not like this and say you don't have a ticket. The system is suppose to work but it has holes. You have to trust that you will have a bed without having the actual ticket in hand. Oh well, it's apart of the adventure. We did fine with it after some gesturing and shoulder shrugging.