Datong

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The hanging monastery has a spectacular setting. It is built into the hillside on wooden stilts. Despite its fragile looking position it is a popular site. Inside there are caves and tiny temple halls with statues.

Our hotel had an excellent location next door to the nine dragons screen. A dragon screen used to be placed in front of important buildings to protect them. The palace that this dragon screen protected was destroyed, but the screen remains. We had a free view of the screen from the balcony at the end of the corridor, but I later paid for a proper view and close up photos.

The second photo today is one of the huge sculptures at the Yangang caves near Datong. These caves focus on sculpture rather than the paintings at Dunhuang. A notable feature of the sculptures of the emperors as Buddha was their elongated earlobes. Cave 6 was especially attractive. It contained a centrapupillary reaching to the roofoof the cave covered in carvings including elephants and pagodas. The carvings also showed scenes from the life of the Buddha, but I don't know the iconography well enough to follow the story.

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