Datong, Shaanxi Province, China

Hanging Monastry, Datong

After a busy week in the office, Kara and Ellen (from work) had the opportunity to head north to the small city of Datong, Shaanxi province.  Datong isn't really on the tourist radar and Kara was perhaps the only foreigner there that day! 

It was a warm Beijing spring day when we boarded an overnight train to Datong. The train took 6 hours and after a very restless sleep we arrived into Datong at 6am. From the railway station our first stop was the Hanging Monastery, Hunyuan County.

You want me to walk on that?

The Hanging Monastery leans snuggly against Hengshan mountain. It was built in 491AD, surviving more than 1400years! We think it is per luck that it remains today. However it seems some thought went into its design. The monks first built the monastery onto the cliff face to protect it from floods. They also built it under the mountain peaks to protect it from snow and within the mountains to protect from sun light. 

Looking out from inside the Monastry

As our bus, full of burping, snoring and farting males, made the two hour journey from Datong  we got quite a surprise as the mountains come into view. The mountain peaks were covered with new snow, quite unusual for that time of the year! Ek.  The Monastery itself looked smaller than we anticipated but after climbing up the hillside it was certainly big enough.

View down to the river

Not feeling exactly supported by this wood

This looks super old! 

What an awesome door handle! 

Walking the small wooden and rickety paths in the Monastery were quite scary, not only were we standing on ancient wood that is thousands of years old, we were hanging literally off the cliff face!

Ancient Budda within the Monastery

After spending some time at the Monastery we attempted to head back into the city. Unfortunately upon leaving we were bombarded by several aggressive taxi drivers. With my limited Chinese I really had no idea between what was being said between Ellen and the taxi drivers. But could pick up that it was 'no good'. Ellen said she also had no idea really what they were saying because they were speaking a different dialect. At the most inappropriate time we both caught the giggles. The general jist was that there were no buses. They could take us to the next bus stop of course (for more than it would cost for the entire bus fare). Why they yelling that at us, I have no idea?

Protected and sacred Budda

Awesome carving on the pillars

At the bus stop again it was very clear that it wasn't really a place frequented by foreigners. Locals openly stared, pointed and brought there friends over to watch the white girl (yes, in the big hat). Our bus (again filled with only males) drove through the country side and we passed village after village made of stone, clay and straw. Ellen explained that in rural China male children are still the preference and there is an extreme disproportion in gender.

Pray temple, Groto Caves

Carvings in the cave

A side view of the Grottoes

Several hours later we were back in Datong, we had a small local noodle lunch with some boiled peanuts before heading out of the city again!

Our next stop was the Yangang Grottoes. Home to over 51,000 Budda relics the temple cave like grottoes are considered "a masterpiece of early Chinese Buddhist cave art"(UNESCO). The caves were developed in 465AD till 494AD, further private caves were developed until 525AD. 

Kara by a giant Budda

Some of the caves were huge with massive carved Budda hidden deep inside. Although the caves have been subjected to a large amount of weathering (sand storms, wind and rain damage) over the decades it is now considered a heritage site and effort is being made to protect the area.

Back in Datong, we wandered the local food markets, particularly eye goggling the usual selection of fruits, we ended up just buying ourselves some ice cream. At 9.30pm we caught the late train back to Beijing. It was a long, hot day- but we had a lot of fun exploring some of Chinese historical sites!

Tot siens,
John and Kara

Another fascinating ancient pole mask

Love these random elephant columns