Day 260 - Yungang Caves, Datong

Thsese dudes are massive...



So, after the hanging monastry (which is only the *2nd* most impressive tourist trap in Datong), we decided to check out the Yungang Caves, a series of 45 caves, 20 minutes out of Datong, that house - get this 51,000 buddha statues. Now, I don't know about you, but the fact that it houses "51,000 buddha statues" means nothing to me. Firstly, I have no idea how many 51,000 is. I mean, 5,000 is ok. I can kinda picture 5,000. But 10,000 and I start to lose track. 51,000 and I have NO IDEA how many that is. Surely its, like, a stupid amount. ridiculous. Anyway, there I am, picturing a set of natural caves on a hillside, loaded with little painted ornamental buddhas. How wrong was i?

We decided on the non-tourist approach again, so after waving a lonely planet (with the chinese symbols for Yungang Grottoes in it) under the noses of some bus drivers, we eventually got on the number 3-1 and headed out of town to a nearby coal mining town. Its kinda grim, and run-down. Much as you'd expect, I guess. But we get off, head past the open brief-cases of buddha ornaments and tacky fake-jade necklaces. and into the deserted park where we're faced by a wall of cliff, dotted with tiny cave entrances etched into them.



We wander to the start of the 45-cave circuit. Its kinda impressive. Not AMAZING. But impressive. The caves are not very deep, but covered in etching of buddhas, dragons, pagodas and important looking dudes. most of the buddhas faces have weathered off by the rain or air pollution or something, so some of them are kinda grim looking. And in the middle of the caves are stone pillars shaped like ancient pagodas. I like it.



And a few more caves like that later, and we're kinda bored. until we find this cave...



Its creepy. and empty. and hollow and scary. and the steps are inviting us to wander in. and there's no one around to stop us, or tell us not to, or save us from the murderers/tigers/spiders that lurk inside. I'm shitting myself. Sam's nervous - but willing. We creep in. To find this...


[check me out, stood at the bottom]

Its enormous right. This man-made cave is probably about 20m high, with a perfect flat ceiling of rock. Its cavernous, echoey. And the buddha, flanked by two smaller dudes on either side, one caught scarily in the sun, peers out of a window in the rock over Datong and the coal-mines. Standing at the bottom, I don't even reach half-way to his knee. Its immense. And all the while, we're creeping around this place like uninvited guests. There's stone-carved corridors to explore, but they're all blocked. so we take the photos and leave. in awe.

Its said that no-one leaves this place unwowed. which is true. Its special. I'm being careful not to gush about it, because it was kinda boring. its samey. The rest of the caves don't differ much. There's small ones...



...there's huge ones...



...there's little ones with THOUSANDS OF BUDDHAS on them (no wonder they racked up 51,000)...



...really knackered ones that look SO wrong...



...and then there's two massive outside dudes, exposed to the elements are rotting as we speak. All in all, its amazing. the work, the effort, the skill. but hey, its like the terracotta army. impressive on paper - a bit lame in the flesh. number one tourist trap in Datong - number 2 for me. The monastry was way better. But maybe just because my life was in danger. i dunno.



anyway, we left the caves and went in search of the Datong "great wall", a segment which hasn't been destroyed yet about 10 minutes from the entrance to the caves. did we find it? don't be stupid. we ask some dude. he shakes his head like we've just asked for a knife to cut our throats. we ask some shopkeeper, who puts down his uzi that he was polishing (wtf?) and calls over his taxi driving mate. we explain - no taxi please - and he points us in the opposite direction to the instructions in the lonely planet. we try both. for an hour. and don't find even a sniff of the great wall of china. which is fine, cos apparently its a rubbish, crumbling mess anyway. and i've already been, so screw the wall.





and as if all 51,000 buddhas got together to kick my ass in some kinda of kharmic-retribution backlash, we ended the day in a horrendous hard-seat night train, getting no sleep with no leg room and no warmth, and ending the horrendous journey trying to find a cab that would take us to a hostel in beijing at 6 in the morning when its -5 degrees outside. which took ages. But eventually we made it into a bed, and for half the price of nights accomdation we slept for 4 hours, cabbed back to the train station and set off on a 7 hour journey to Taishan - home of a massive (and most) sacred mountain in China, which I plan on climbing solo sometime in the next couple of days. i'm mental. damn right.

Day 259 - The Hanging Monastry, Datong

Every now and then, you strike gold...



So, Sam and I are sat in Xian, back off the Terracotta Army trip, which you might know I kinda hated. And we're discussing where to go next. We had a choice. We could go south, see some panda's, but then getting back to Beijing might have been a hassle. We could go to Taian, site of china's most sacred, and scalable, mountains. Or we could go to Datong - outback, dusty, cold and challenging (there's very little tourist infrastructure there apparently). So what do we do - we choose Datong.

Datong is a 6 hour train ride west of Beijing, so after watching the new Willy Wonka film (what's with the sucky ending about finding a family?), we jump on a night train and head north to Beijing, arriving at 6am to the blistering cold of winter. Our connection to Datong isn't for 8 hours, so we head back to our old hostel and play some cards in the warm before heading off on the hard-seat journey to Datong, packed in like sardines into the carriages reserved for locals. Its grim - they smoke on the train, they spit on the floor (after hacknig up half their lungs first - a common occurance in china), the spill noodles on their laps and kids scream the whole way. Its smells SO BAD, and its freezing, and SO UNCOMFORTABLE. Seriously, unless you're going for the authentic travelling experience in china, aviod the hard-seat carriages.



But we made it, and scooted across the street to the nearest hotel and bundled into a dorm room (i.e. 4 beds in a room with no facilities, sharing the staff toilet and showers), where we met a wicked girl who was staying in the same room. She's funny, easy to get on with, and speaks a little mandarin, so the next day we get up early ready to head to the famed Hanging Monastry with her.

Datong boasts two attractions - the first and most respected is its Buddhist caves, caved out of the surrounding hillside and adorned with over 50,000 carvings of buddhas. shocker. that's a lot. The second, and less well-received, is its Hanging Monastry. That said, for 100 yuan (7 quid), you can jump on a tourist bus and visit the caves, the monastry and a jade factory, all in one day, and with the comfor of no chinese people spitting on your shoes and no hassle getting cabs and buses. But we're not here for that. So we wrap up warm, hit the road and start trying to make our way 1 hour out of town to the monastry.

First we're bundled on a bus by a local, responding to our "Xuankong Si" calls (the name of the monastry). We pay up, take a seat, laugh at how easy that was, then get bundled off 3 stops later and pointed down a road. 10 minutes later we're bundled onto another bus, which we suddenly realise is a tour bus and is going to rip us off (it wasn't) so start shouting "TING!" (stop) at the driver and bundle ourselves off. Then we're hassled excessively by taxi drivers, so much so we jump on the next bus, which is a small 14-seater minibus. Its smokey, stinky and tiny. And after paying up and getting comfortable, it stops to pick up half of china. In the end we had 28 people on the bus, sat on tiny wooden stools in the aisles and croching at the front so the driver can see his mirrors. It was mental. And then, a hour later, we're dropped off outside a taxi which offers to drive us to the monastry for 30yuan (it should have been 10yuan - ripped).

But we made it. And this is what we saw...



Perched - literally sliding off - the mountain side is this amazing monastry - stacked in places 3 storeys high and dripping with ancient, religious charm. Its freezing, and we're starving, so we jump into a restaurant (which rips us off AGAIN) before donning our gloves and beginning the small scale to the foot of the monastry.







Now, I love stuff like this. Its old - 1400 years - and yet tourists can still clamber over it. Some of the staircases are held up with mere wedges under the supports, and the whole thing creaks with age as you carefully pick your footing on the hanging balconies around the outsides of the gorgeously adorned rooms of buddhist deities and gods.



My fear of heights kicks in at one point, enough that I want to turn back, but I carry on, edging my way around the one-way system of narrow paths. Its magical, and we're here all alone, except for a group that arrive just as we start our descent. Its charming and captivating, and surrounding by a jaw-dropping gorge and dam, complete with frozen ice flows seeping from holes in the rock. I scoot up the concrete steps lining the side of the gorge to the top of the dam and stare out over the frozen lake.









The return journey is somewhat more comfortable, taking the same cab back to the nearby town and a nicer bus which affords us some sleep. And then its a mammoth internet session to end the day, making use of the faster-than-beijing connection and ability to check my myspace without crashing the computer.