A Tale Of Two Towers

After my fun on Huangshan, the next day was a day for travelling. Two very long bus rides starting at 7am and ending at 2am left me in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province. Not a huge amount in Zhengzhou to do really, but the nearby attractions in Kaifeng and Luoyang promised to be worthwhile visiting, both being ancient centres for Chinese civilisation and previous capitals of the country.

My first trip out of Zhengzhou was to Kaifeng, Chinese capital back in the Northern Song Dynasty, about one thousand years ago. My guidebook seemed to rave about this place, but I was pretty disappointed with it and it's still the least interesting place I've been to date. They'd reconstructed the old palace in the centre of town, but it was a soul-less effort less than 5 years old, and just turned me cold. I didn't go in. I walked round in the rain looking for something worthwhile visiting but came up with very little. What I did find were two towers, the first situated in a park and covered from top to bottom in glazed tiles. This was pretty unique, and I always like towers, so I paid in to that one. Photos below...
The second tower was down some back alley in a scruffy part of town, but is the oldest in Kaifeng, and more than 1000 years old in itself. Following a pretty devastating earthquake way back in the past there're only two storeys remaining, but what is left is very, very cool. The whole thing is covered inside and out in moulded bricks depicting images of different Buddhist figures. There are dozens of different figures and I spent ages looking around for all of them. These two towers redeemed Kaifeng slightly for me, but I would still rather have spent a bit more time in Luoyang instead.