Caves and Temples

After our 2 week stay in Beijing, we felt ready to move on. The plan was for us to head to Xi'An, stopping at Datong city and Wutai Shan for a few days on the way. Wutai shan is one of the 4 buddhist mountains in China, and it seemed to be a nice opportunity to get out into the countryside. Sadly, once we arrived into Datong we were told that there were no buses out to wutai shan: the last one that ran only had 2 tourists on board so they had cancelled until the peak season.

Still, we were in Datong city and set about arranging transport out to the two main attractions around the city; The Yungan Buddhist grottoes and the Hanging temple. The local CITS (Chinese International Tourist Service) office were very helpful, and although they were pretty expensive we booked a car with them so that we could see both sites in one day. Datong isnt a very nice city - its the first place that we have felt threatened when walking around - and so we didnt really feel the need to hang around. Plus, we wanted to get out on the next stage of our trip going!

The Yungang caves were first on the agenda, and they were amazing. The place itself is a wooden temple set into a limestone cliff face, maybe 500m long. The clifface was covered in small 'caves' (most of them were just small hollows really) and every single one had the inside walls carved with Buddha figures. We had a great time - never seen anything like it!

After the caves we headed to the "Hanging Temple" - literally a buddhist temple which is built on stilts on the side of a mountain. This was incredible! As we drove into the mountains the weather closed in, to the point that it was snowing when we arrived. The locals who hang around get very excited when you look cold and rent you their big coats (see picture!). Although we always prefer things when the sky is clear, the cold weather seemed to suit the hanging temple. When you walk around it really fits to have the wind howling away outside, and all the little stoves lit in the chapels. We really enjoyed the hanging temple - a definite highlite of china!!

When we got back to Datong we found out why people always say you should be careful when dealing with the CITS. We had asked the guy to arrange us travel to Xi'An, and when we got back he said that there were no tickets left. Okay, fine, we expected this when we tried to travel so close to chinese new year. The trouble is that for the last 2 days he had been saying that he would arrange the tickets "later". Surprise surprise, the fact that we had missed our chance with the train meant that we would have to fly - at a cost of 650 Y each, plus his 20%. We decided to get the bus back to Beijing and arrange travel from there!!! Lesson learnt: make sure they do what you want!

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