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Published: August 8th 2008
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A big Buddha in a cave
This is from one of the Yungang caves. Every cave is covered with statues. If you know the whole Buddha story, you'd be able to see it all on the walls. Our plan was to leave Beijing on a train to Datong, see the Yungang caves and the hanging monastery, then go to Wu Tai Shan, Pingyao and finally catch a train to Xi'an. We had a hotel reserved for 1 night in Datong and the next hotel was waiting for us in Xi'an. Between that, we had no idea how to navigate. We kind of looked through the books and it kind of looked all logical and close. Of course, we found out later why this route is not that logical as it seems. The main reason is transportation, and really I think we got so lucky that we met the CITS guy in Datong who actually explained to us what to do. Later, I'll tell you a story what happened to us when we deviated from the suggestion.
But let's start from the train between Beijing and Datong. We almost missed it as the Beijingxi train station was quite a taxi ride from where we stayed. As we were running towards the station, I was thinking, that's it, we'll never be able to find the train and decipher the Chinese characters on the spot in the time we had.
Compare
I like how these people show the size of this Buddha. It's huge! What a surprise, the station had English signs everywhere, so we actually had no problem finding our way to the train. Well, not quite to the train, but to the gate to the train with a huge line of people waiting to board. When the time came to board, that is exactly 5 minutes before the train was supposed to leave, the gate opened and all the people ran towards the train. We hopped on and the train left at the exact time. Wow, that's really a race. And why? That's because my bank account was blocked as they saw activities on it from China and I didn't tell them that I was going there. So we had to deal with the bank till the last moment we had to run to the station.
The train was just like I imagined after reading descriptions from other travelers. Called hard sleeper, it reminded me the Russian version called "platskart". Just like in Russia, each compartment had no door and had 6 beds. The only difference was that the beds were placed in threes one above the other. Similar train in Russia has 4 beds inside the compartment (2 on each
Ambassador
This one is special. He is called the Ambassador of China to the world. Don't know why though. You can probably find a lot of photos of this one. wall) and 2 beds on the opposite side so that a path goes between the 2 and the 4 other beds. The most interesting part for me was the very top bed which was really high up and seemed to not have any space unless you're in more or less horizontal position. The other interesting part of the train was the toilet area. Needless to say that the toilet itself was just a hole. The two sinks were outside in a separate room with no door, so brushing teeth happened in a big group with people walking in and out. And smoking. Because of the lack of the doors, the smoke floated freely into the train. So here it was, the closed can with people smoking inside.
After some gesticulating with the other passengers, we found that our beds were on level 2 which was good. The only problem I couldn't solve is where to put the backpack. I didn't like the possibility of parting with it so I put it under my legs and tried to sleep.
We arrived to Datong early in the morning, the sun was rising from behind the misty smog but still looked
Ambassador's head
See the detail behind. Pretty elaborate. quite cheerful. We immediately spotted our hotel from the train station and then we saw the guy with a sign saying CITS. We typically don't really talk to the tour people but this time we really needed to find out the fastest way to see what we wanted to see and get out. So, the guy took us to the office where we found all we needed to know. The 2 things we came to see in Datong were packaged to 1 tour which can be done in a day. Actually, he even booked the train to Pingyao for the other tourists like us, the train was leaving in the evening after we would come back. That was our last chance for an easy trip there which we didn't take of course. We had a plan to see Wu Tai Shan. Well, the guy booked us a hotel in Wu Tai Shan and Pingyao and explained how to get there: bus from Datong to Wu Tai Shan in the morning of the next day, stay 1 night there, catch the bus the next day to Taiuan, switch bus station, catch a bus to Pingyao, spend a night there, catch a
Missing
Unfortunately, many things are missing from the caves. They are probably in private collections or museums. Every wondered where all the museums get "original" Buddha heads? Well, the bodies are probably still there. Though, I was surprised how many Buddhas actually had heads in these caves. train in the evening of the next day to Xi'an. And yes, the hotel in Pingyao would have our tickets for the train. Yes, it sounded like a race, but we decided to do it anyway since we were so close.
There is really nothing you can do in Datong. Our hotel was close to the train station and was quite nice. They even had internet and bath robes in the rooms. I have to say a couple of words about the excident in the restaurant though. To me, this was the evidence of the cultural difference which even I, being from an ex soviet country, couldn't quite understand at first. So this guy was hanging curtains in the restaurant right in front of our table. The ladder under him fell and he fell pretty bad on his hip. So what did all the people do? The laughed! And that's it. He just had to go back to the ladder and continue with the task. I'm sure this wasn't a simple fall and I'm sure he was in pain for a while and maybe even worse, but people don't seem to worry about it. Anyway, I think I need
No fingers
Have you also seen fingers in museums? to learn some more about the culture.
Now, the reason we came to Datong was to visit the temple and the caves. The tour was actually alright with an intelligent looking girl who could speak English and with about 20 other foreigners. Some caves were closed and the monastery had way too many people. The sellers in the caves were kind of annoying though. I decided I wouldn't buy anything before I get to Guangzhou, so I was just looking around. They kept offering me the stuff and were bargaining by themselves. 70, no? ok 50 no? your price? ok, 20. No-no, I don't need anything. We had a lunch in the place near the monastery for which we paid about 10Y. That's about $1.5! There was a lot of food. The most interesting thing I learned about the monastery was that it didn't belong to a particular religion. Buddhist, taoist and konfusian monks would stay there for several days in a row, one religion at a time though. The monastery is about 50m above the ground, but used to be about 100m. So visit it now before it's not "hanging" anymore and also before it's impossible to be
The little holes
Most statues are covered in these walls. We asked our guide and it appeared that at some point the they were covered with gold plates to protect from the outside. The plates were held using these holes. there due to the pollution. There are coal mines all over the place and the sun is like the Moon and the trucks of coal run around everywhere.
So to wrap up the Datong experience I'm going to say this. Visit it before the pollution made it impossible to see anything in the region. This is probably the worst place we've been in China in this sense. But the caves are cool.
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