Datong, Wutai Shan and Pingyao

From Beijing I got the train to Datong, a large industrial town to the west of Beijing. Theres not really anything very interesting in the city itself, but I did a day trip to a couple of sites just outside the city. The first was a hanging temple which was built on the side of a cliff about 100m above a valley. It's about 1500 years old and was built to try and prevent the villages below from flooding. It was very impressive and in good condition considering how old it is and it must have been very difficult to build but I think the building of a big dam at the end of the valley was probably more successful in preventing the flooding.

The other place I went to was the Yungang caves that were carved at around the same time as the temple was built. There were about 50 caves each with carvings of different Budhas and Budhist stories etc. I think the biggest was about 20m tall, so they were also very impressive and made the trip to Datong worth it. Datong isn't really one of the main places Western tourists seem to go, so there are no hostels. When I got off the train the CITS (Chinese travel agency) just took all Western people into their office and allocated everyone a bed in any hotel. The room I ended up in wasn't too bad, but the shared bathroom was to be avoided as much as possible. Basically for the whole hotel there seemed to be just one toilet that was somehow supposed to also be used as a shower. This might not have been too bad if it had looked like it had been cleaned sometime in the past few years. But instead of actually cleaning it there always just seemed to be 3 members of staff sitting on a sofa outside it watching people going in and out.

From Datong I got a bus to Wutai Shan. This is a group of holy mountains to the South of Datong, where there are hundreds of Budhist temples which are still lived in by monks. Went to see a couple of the temples but due to my lack of knowledge on Budhism they all seem a bit the same to me so spent most of the time there wandering round the hills. This was a very welcome break to escape the smog of the city and all the people that are constantly hasseling you when you walk around anywhere else. Theres always people trying to get you to buy stuff, go in restraunts, hotels, taxis, shouting random stuff at you, trying to take photos of you etc., so its not always the most relaxing place to be. It has taken a while to get used to that and some of the habits of the Chinese, like spitting everywhere. Also ended up staying in a bit of a strange hotel in Wutai Shan, as its another place where there are very few Western tourists. The owners of the hotel seemed to think that by 5am everyone should be awake and went round banging on all the doors and shouting something. But other than that it was a nice relaxing couple of days.

The last couple of days I have spent in Pingyao, which has been completly different from both Datong and Wutai Shan. It is an ancient walled city where no cars so everyone gets around by bike, donkey or walking. It seems to be a very popular tourist place, (half the people here must be French) so its very easy to get around and I'm pleased to be staying in a proper hostel again. Been to various historical sites around the city and its been a nice place just to walk around.

Moving on again tonight, getting a train to Xian