Photo Of Peanuts: Shelled Peanuts, Skinned Peanuts, Sold In Chengde Market.

From Beijing to Chengde, we travelled by train for a better opportunity to see the countryside and the towns through which we passed. Mountains and valleys, roads and farms, towns and people, we would have missed all this had we made the journey by plane! We were met in Chengde and taken by minibus to our hotel where we would stay for one night. When the bellboy took us in the lift to our room, I said to him, 'I have never seen such a tall bellboy in China!' he laughed and replied, 'Wait until you see my workmate tomorrow, he is taller than me!', and it proved to be the case. We left the warm hotel and walked in a cold wind to have a look at the market near to the hotel. On one stall was a display of peanuts, the like of which I had not seen before. Peanuts in their shells, peanuts out of their shells, and peanuts out of their skins. We were told that peanuts were one of the crops grown by local farmers. On the same stall were displays of oranges, apples and bananas source of origin unknown, although on one street we walked through, a farmer had before him a basket full of apples, from which he was weighing some on a balance scale, for a customer.