Blogs from Datong, Shanxi, China, Asia - page 3

Datong, at the Coalface of China Datong, located 300 km west of Beijing in Shanxi province, has a reputation for being one of the most polluted cities in China. Coal is its thing, and there’s no hiding it. Yet, perhaps undeservedly, it is also the guardian of two of northern China’s finest historic treasures. Datong The five-hour bus to Datong gives a basic impression of what is to come. Beside the highway lies the main railway towards Beijing, along which great locomotives heave an endless succession of trains, each a hundred carriages long. They are all carrying coal bound for the capital’s power stations. For Shanxi, feeding Beijing with coal really is akin to selling gummy bears to the fat kid at school. But you wouldn’t say Datong has reaped endless rewards from the relationship. While ... read more

the city of Datong is not really worth except for the fact that it is close to the the beautiful Caves of Yungang and the hanging monastery visit both the sights on a day trip by bus or car... read more

Hot water is on only after the morning call in the hotel. After a simple breakfast they call it the morning meal 早飯, we took off at 7:00am on time. It took 90 min of mountain road to get to the monastery on Mount Heng of Datong. The cost to get in is 60 rmb; student discount for me is half the price. It is only less than two hours per day the monastery is in full sunlight. The monastery is not that big, no more than 100 persons single file can fit in there. 30 % of the structure is cantilevered out of the cliff and constructed of specially treated wood. The pole is only for decoration to make you feel safe while up there. There are no structural values of the poles. It has ... read more

Gabe again. (apparently steph gets burned out writing in her own blog and leaves me to fill in the details of the trip) Yesterday there was a bit of a mixup with the train tickets. The girl at the happy dragon in beijing helped us get the tickets, and she even gave us a brochure and circled the chinese phrase telling the driver to take us to the west train station. The only problem was our train ticket was for a different train station 10 km away - we didn't find that out until we got to the west train station. There wasn't enough time to get a cab up to the correct station but luckily they were able to transfer our ticket, free of charge, to a train that left an hour later. Could have ... read more

The bus leaving Wutai Shan early in the morning to the Hanging Monastery was - like usual - packed with people. The trip took about three hours on a sometimes bumpy road. I was glad to have a normal seat in the bus. After arriving at the Hanging Monastery, I approached one of the couples from the bus. They could speak basic English and I asked them whether they knew how to get from there to Datong later. They told me that they had gotten a phone number of a taxi driver who was taking them later to Datong and the caves which are situated there too. That was exactly what I wanted, so they arranged that I could join them in the taxi! Because I had my backpack with me and there was no official ... read more