Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Datong
Datong is an industrial city in the north of the Shanxi province. Our trip there, by day train in the hard seat class, was an amusing experience due to the curiosity of the people and their over-eagerness to recommend us hotels (usually 5 stars) and sights.
Nowadays, Datong is quite an unremarkable place boasting pollution records thanks to it's mining industry and coal power plants which provide Beijing with electricity.
But the surroundings bear two very impressive sites, relics from the times where Datong was the capital of the Northern Wei dynasty, 1500 years ago. The first is the Yungang caves, where buddhist temples and shrines are carved directly in the mountain. The largest statues where approximately 20 meters high.
The second is the hanging temple. This cliff already held a temple during the Wei times. Each time the river washed it away, the monks built a new one a bit higher to avoid it happening again... The actual one is maybe 200 years old, and is rather safe since an electric dam was built upstream.
Nowadays, Datong is quite an unremarkable place boasting pollution records thanks to it's mining industry and coal power plants which provide Beijing with electricity.
But the surroundings bear two very impressive sites, relics from the times where Datong was the capital of the Northern Wei dynasty, 1500 years ago. The first is the Yungang caves, where buddhist temples and shrines are carved directly in the mountain. The largest statues where approximately 20 meters high.
The second is the hanging temple. This cliff already held a temple during the Wei times. Each time the river washed it away, the monks built a new one a bit higher to avoid it happening again... The actual one is maybe 200 years old, and is rather safe since an electric dam was built upstream.
