Amazing Caves and a bit of sickness

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After a long day of traveling we arrived in Pingyao tonight. This morning we had to catch a bus from Datong to Taiyuan and then walk to the train station and buy tickets for a train from Taiyuan to Pingyao. First I’ll tell you about Datong.

The train from Beijing to Datong was approximately 6 hours long. I woke up feeling very under the weather and it only continued to get worse. 3 hours into the train ride my whole body was aching and I was needing to run to the toilet to get sick. Our hard seats combined with the rocking of the train and sheer discomfort was enough to make me feel 10 times sicker. After a few stops the person sitting next to Dev got off so I was able to somewhat lay down and try to sleep for a bit. Arriving in Datong it was chilly and I was shaking with the cold and my low fever. Thankfully the office that we booked our hostel through was located right inside the station, the reservation process went very quickly and the hostel was directly across the station. I immediately had a shower (a very cold shower as the hot water wasn’t working), put on my pajamas and climbed into bed to rest up and hopefully get over the sickness. Devlin was awesome, he went out to take a taxi to the ATM to withdraw money and brought back some KFC for us to eat. After dinner it was time for an early bedtime.

At the office where we booked our hostel we also booked an organized tour of the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Monastery, which was a tad overpriced but we were ready for an easy day where all we had to think about was boarding a bus and listening to a guide. We only had one full day in Datong to sightsee, and since I was not feeling well when we arrived we wanted to play it safe and make sure we saw the sights we came to see. It was a little strange being on a bus of all foreigners, since all the sightseeing we’ve done so far was all on our own. But we met some interesting people and had a good day. I woke up still feeling sick, but I dressed in some comfy clothes, took a couple Advil and bought an orange juice to get some vitamins in me. By midday the aches and pains were gone and I was back to normal. Thank goodness. We know that a fever is not something to take lightly when in foreign countries as you never know what it might be, and if I was still unwell at the end of the day we were going to go to a doctor to make sure it was nothing serious.

The Hanging Monastery is a temple hanging on the side of a mountain. It has rooms and boardwalks built into the natural curves of the mountainside. It was neat to be up so high in a building which dates back more than 1400 years but it was also a bit unnerving as the guardrails were no higher than my knees and the stairs were very steep and narrow. It was also quite crowded as the holiday is coming close and a lot more people are traveling. Lunch was included in the trip, and we ate at a small restaurant at the base of the monastery. There were about 5 or 6 dishes and steamed rice, we had no idea what we were eating but it sure tasted good! Mystery meals seem to be our favorite so far! After lunch it was back on the bus to head to the caves. Dev befriended an older French man (from France, not Quebec and a researcher in Theoretical Chemistry which he found cool) and they chatted it up sharing travel stories for the 2 hour ride. The caves were certainly the highlight of this trip and it’s unfortunate they saved them until afternoon because we didn’t get to spend nearly enough time exploring them. The caves are the oldest and finest stone sculptures in China and date back to 460 AD! There are 45 caves in all, each containing some amazing work. One cave had a colossal 17m seated Buddha, another housed a 15m Buddha and yet another had a 15m high Pagoda Pillar. Every inch of the inside of these caves was intricately carved, one told the story of Gautama Buddha from birth until he attained nirvana. It was very neat to see something that old that hasn’t been retouched or restored in any way. It was also sad to see the carvings on the outside of the caves all but eroded away in most parts, hopefully they are able to keep what is left there undamaged. Datong is a coal city, so much of the pollution from the coal caused damage to the caves, but a new road diverting coal trucks has been built to try and stop this (the coal mine is directly across the street though). It was nice having a guide to point out all the things we would have missed otherwise and show us the story of Gautama Buddha but I wish we had more time to go back here and see them a little more slowly. We had only an hour to wander around by ourselves and marvel at this wonder.

The next day (today) we had to be up early to go to the post office to post a parcel home and catch our bus to Taiyuan, so it was off to bed early for us again.

This morning we woke and I started packing all our stuff while Dev trucked off with our load of goods to be mailed home. I finished packing, and waited…and waited…and waited…for him to come back. After 2 hours I was beginning to get nervous and I had finished my book so I was just sitting in the room staring at my watch praying he was ok and that he would come back quickly. Finally, sick of sitting in the room, I headed downstairs to sit outside and watch for him. We must have somehow missed each other when I came down, because I sat outside for 20 minutes waiting and growing more nervous when he came out from the hotel smiling at finally finding me! I was so relieved to see him, it turned out that his Chinese pronunciation is not as good as he thought, and it took him two buses to return to the hotel. Now we were running a little late and had to rush to grab our things, check out, and get to the bus station. Arriving at the bus station we had two people come up to help us and we pointed in the guidebook where we wanted to go and they ushered us to the window, spoke some fast Chinese to the ticket lady, we handed over our money and then were told to rush to catch the bus. It was 11:55 and the time on the tickets said 11:50! Our bus was super posh with comfy leather seats and footrests and even a movie! (and karaoke after the movie was done, the woman behind me was quietly singing along!) A short 3.5 hours later we arrived in Taiyuan and set off on foot to the train station (about 3 blocks away). It was chaos when we entered the station. The lines at each ticket window were really long and we had no idea what train number we wanted or if there even was a train running at this time. I turned to the young man standing behind us and asked if he spoke English. He smiled and hesitated and then said “yes, very little”. We managed to tell him where we were going and he helped us out by talking to the window person and getting us two tickets! Thank goodness for nice people who speak a little English, they have really saved us a few times! We had 3 hours until our train left so we decided to wander down the street and check out the local scene. Everyone was staring at us, quite blatantly, it seems each city we go to we receive more and more stares from people. And they call “helloooo” to you and when you look and say hello! back they find it the most hilarious thing and burst into laughter. It’s even more hilarious when you reply back “Ni hao!” (hello in Chinese). Then other people around will chime in with “ni hao! Hello! hi! Bye bye!” all while laughing their heads off!! We were starving because we hadn’t had time to eat anything so we beelined for the dumpling restaurant and pointed in our phrasebook to pork dumpling (they spoke NO English in the restaurant) and took a seat. For 10 yuan we got 22 pork dumplings and 2 cokes! That’s ~$1.50!

There were vendors set up lining the street selling necklaces and bracelets and TIGER PAWS. Yes tiger paws. With the bone still attached, and the claws and even a bit of fur. I have no idea what the price was, we contemplated how cool it would look on our mantle or coffeetable but it would be supporting an illegal industry (poaching) and besides it would be a waste if it got taken by customs officials. Ziggy would probably eat it anyways!!

We settled down outside the train station to await our departure time. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was staring at us. Someone approached us and in very broken English asked us where we were going. We told him and he said he was going to Pingyao too. He asked where we were staying and pulled out a pile of different guesthouse fliers. We pointed to the one we had booked and he started phoning someone and asking us to talk on the phone! Dev spoke to someone, who told him that they would pick us up from the train station. Being cautious and careful travelers we turned them down, unsure of who this man was and who might be waiting to pick us up when we arrived. The map said it was only 1km to the guesthouse so we figured we could hire a taxi on our own when we arrived. Now let me say, this man looked shady from the start and we didn’t trust him very much. Pingyao is a very small town (30 000) so it seemed rather coincidental that this man happened to also be going there and was willing to arrange transportation for us. We were also nervous because we would be arriving in the dark, which puts us at a disadvantage from the start. We though we had lost him but when we entered the waiting room there he was flagging us over to the 2 seats he had saved for us! He would not stop staring at us either, and we were really beginning to feel nervous. When our boarding call came, he motioned to us to show him our tickets, and lo and behold he was only a few seats from us! Strange, in a 16 car train, that he would somehow end up near us. He kept his eye on us as we joined the crowd waiting to board. Another young boy smiled at us and noticed on our ticket that we were going to Pingyao. I think he wanted to practice his English because he asked us where we were from (Oh Canada! he said, I have a sister who lives in Vancouver!) and we chatted a bit. He cautioned us to keep an eye on our baggage and to watch out for theft, which did nothing to ease our fear of the strange man following us. He pointed us in the direction of our car and waved goodbye and we climbed into the car, with the strange man still in tow. He walked us to our seats, and we watched him speak to the person who was sitting next to us and point to his seat further down the row. Oh no, he’s talked that man into switching seats so he can sit right next to us!! We exchanged worried looks. He did not try to speak to us, so he wasn’t practicing his English, and he said something in Chinese to the group sitting around us and everyones eyes turned to us and stared. There were two girls on the train who would not stop staring at us, and it was making me uncomfortable. On my way back from the bathroom an entire group of older men stared and seemed to laugh at me. I was getting fed up and frustrated by all of this. The ride was only an hour and a half, and when we were nearly there another man came up and asked us something in Chinese. We gestured that we didn’t understand, so he spoke more loudly and slowly (because if you speak slowly I’m going to understand Chinese magically?! Please don’t make this mistake, if someone does not understand you because they don’t speak English don’t speak slower and yell it in their face, it won’t help them to suddenly know what you mean…). We told him we still didn’t understand and he started laughing, the entire group of people around us also started laughing. As we exited the train people were standing up and staring at us and saying “bye bye, bye bye”. Out into the dark we walked along the platform until we exited the station. This man was telling us he arranged a taxi to take us to the guesthouse but we didn’t believe him. I guess we have read far too many horror stories about people being robbed and who was this strange man anyways? How did we know he was honest? We kept telling him no, no and we tried walking to a taxi on our own but he was right there beside us speaking to every driver in Chinese before we would get in. We couldn’t shake him!! He kept dialing some number on his cell phone and speaking frantically to them, and holding out the phone for us to speak. Eventually some man came and said he was the owner of the guesthouse and we got into a taxi nervously and allowed the driver to drive off. Sure we were headed off to certain death I don’t think either of us took a breath in the back of this cab. It seemed we took a lot of twists and turns when the map only showed 2 turns. And the distance was only supposed to be 1km, why was it taking so long to get there? Just as I was ready to jump and roll out of the taxi door, we were flagged over by a woman and the cab stopped in front of Harmony Guesthouse. Oh my goodness. We are alive! We made it! Hooray! We were slightly embarrassed and apologized for all the confusion but at the same time you can never be too cautious right? Far too many people have been overly trusting and got taken advantage of. The guesthouse turned out fabulously, the owner speaks very good English and we chatted with him asking him about his life and he told us about his kids and where he went to university. He also is the cook of the little restaurant and we asked that he cook us a meal, he recommended 2 dishes saying they were the local specialty and were quite good. On the menu the dish above the one he recommended was stir fried bull’s penis!! Thank goodness THAT isn’t the local specialty!

The food he brought was delicious, and the tea was very tasty also. With bellies full and nerves calmed we’re back in our room now, showered and ready to hit the sack. After such excitement I’m sure we will sleep very well tonight. Pingyao looks to be a very neat little place. It is the only city with completely intact city walls, built in 827 BC! It was restored in the Ming dynasty. The walls are 6km all the way around, so we plan to rent bicycles and tour around tomorrow.

Sorry for the lapse in entries but we had no access to internet in Datong and were far too tired (and sick on the first day!) to venture out and find a café. We were lucky in booking a sleeper train from Pingyao to Xi’an. The CITS office did it for us for a small commission, so close to the holiday we were fortunate to get tickets as our other option was to head back to Taiyuan and catch a train originating there. We catch the sleeper on Friday night for the 12 hour ride. I anticipate this ride to be much smoother, as I won’t be sick and I’ll have a bed to stretch out in. Because of the week long holiday we had to extend our stay in Xi’an, we were unable to book a sleeper to Chengdu during the week. There is a lot to see in Xi’an so it’s not a bad thing, as I’m sure the crowds will also be heavy so it will be nice to have a lot of time to wander around.

It’s way past our bedtime, we must sign off now. Miss you all! It’s been a whole month, can you believe it?! Every day is a new learning experience that we wouldn’t trade for anything. And we must be getting better at packing our backpacks because after we mailed home the huge parcel with gifts today both our bags have ample space and feel somewhat light! Mailing stuff home is pretty affordable, our giant box weighed 8.8kg and only cost roughly $42 to send by sea! The hard part is lugging it around until you’ve collected enough to make it worthwhile to send!

Ciao!

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Photos

Hanging Monastery
The Chinese characters mean "Beautiful Site" or "Magnificent Site" or something to that effect.

It's really built into a mountain!
Here you can see how the monastery is built right up against the side of the cliff.

Truly a Beautiful Site!
I wonder how the secured this massive monastery to the rock cliffs?

Erin and the Buddha
All of the other Chinese women were posing like this, so I decided to as well. We learned that the different hand positions of the Buddha's mean different things, such as openess and forgiveness.

Tall Buddha
These Buddhas were towering at 15-18m high!

Incredible!
Caves just full with intricate carvings. You could spend all day here and not see half of the art.