Advertisement
Published: January 16th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Datong has a population of about 3 million people and is a big coal producing region. It served as the capital around 400 AD and did so for about 70 years. You'd think that a city this steeped in history would have loads to see and do, unfortunately this did not prove to be the case.
We took the overnight train from Beijing and arrived in at about 7.00 am. We knew what it was we wanted to see and in hindsight we should have just gone and did it in the one day But we were curious as to what Datong had to offer. We loaded into the CITS, sort of travel agents, booked accommodation, our train tickets onwards and a tour for the next day. We did some walking around the city that day and literally had the sights seen, all two of them, in an hour.
It was at this point that the inquisitiveness of the Chinese came to the fore. The stares we got, me in particular, was nothing short of ridiculous. Case in point was on our walk back from town that day. We came across a young girl performing in front of a
Datong
Living it up crowd, microphone the lot. The crowd numbered somewhere between 50 and 100. She spotted yours truly and started to shout "Hello, welcome to Datong!!", that sort of thing, and the whole crowd stared me out of it. My comrades, Lucia, Anna and Pete scarpered and left me to deal with the lot of them. Haven't blushed that much since I was a teenager.
HANGING MONASTERY
Next morning we boarded a bus with a few other travelers from various spots on the globe and quite possibly one of the oddest tour guides I've ever met. She was quite motionless and expressionless which made it hard to concentrate on what she was saying.
After a 2 hour drive we arrived at the Hanging Monastery. The place was something else, it had been built into the rock face, which supported the structures weight, and stood about 50 m in the air. We were told that originally it was 100 m when it was built 1400 years ago, but sediment deposits and the building of a dam nearby shortened this to 50 m. It took nothing away from the spectacle to be fair.
YUNGANG CAVES
After lunch we headed to Yungang
Datong
Anyone for chicken feet Caves. This was the highlight of the day. They had been constructed when Datong was the capital, and it is thought that some 40,000 workers over 50 years to complete. Before they were completed the capital was moved. The locals did continue the work but not with the same grandeur. Their caves were smaller and the statues were on a lesser scale, mainly due to money.
When you come in the main entrance you are greeted by a massive wooden structure. At one time the these structures formed the entrance to all the larger caves. Inside there were some 16 caves and all decorated lavishly with statues and pagoda's. They were all exquisitely carved depicting the life of Buddha.
The caves were carved out of sandstone which is not the most durable of stones. The caves have become quite worn and the statues can be difficult to make out. I wouldn't think the nearby coal mine is helping much either.
During the cultural revolution many statues were either destroyed or stolen, over a thousand in fact, and the wooden entrances were all burned. You really get to see the best and worst of human nature on trips
like this. How creative we can be and how destructive!
We headed back to Datong after this to catch our train. We were once again taking the overnight to our next destination, Pingyao. The fun wasn't over yet though. When we were waiting in the train station we were approached by some students wishing to do some portraits, and they'd just hit the jackpot. This time to my delight, they weren't interested in me!
The girls had about a dozen of these teenagers sitting around them doing portraits. The inquisitiveness of the locals meant that this quickly swelled to most of the people in the station, all just standing around staring at us and what the girls were doing. Really very surreal.
To be honest Datong does not have a lot going for it. There is little or nothing to do or see. As I said before this is mainly a coal mining region and you can really taste it in the air! So my advice is, come here and see what you want to see, it can be done in one day, but don't hang about.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 11; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0393s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Paulie
non-member comment
The yetee lives
Seamie, you look like a grizzly bear, I likie a lot!