Datong to Xi'an

(8/11/2006-18/11/2006)

The train arrived in Datong at some ridiculously early hour in the morning, and somehow I managed to leave my money belt with my passport in it on the train. Luckily the train terminated there so I went to the CITS (the national tour service for foreigners) and they were very helpful in getting it back for me. I didn't trust myself that day after that though, so I decided to pay for the day tour to the Hanging Temple and the Yungang Caves. Although it was a bit pricey, it turned out to be not so bad, as by public transport it would be hard to fit both into one day, the entry fees were quite a bit, and it included a meal.

The Hanging Temple was quite impressive, being built on a sheer cliff face with narrow walkways to get around, but the main reason I had come to Datong was to see the Yungang Caves. These were caves that over 2 thousand years or so had had thousands and thousands of Buddhas carved into them. These ranged from huge great statues 20 metres or more tall to the decoration in frames and columns around the larger statues, made up almost entirely of smaller Buddhas. Thankfully over-restoration has not yet destroyed these caves, nor had they been too devastated by the Cultural Revolution or foreign looting, so some were well preserved, others with weather beaten, but you could see that they were definitely really really old.

Having seen everything I wanted to in Datong, I got the night train to Pingyao, an old walled city. Since then I have spoken to other people who seemed to think that it was very restored, so maybe it was just covered in dust from the roadworks they were doing (the two main streets completely dug up so you had to walk along crumbling piles of earth and planks next to great ditches with people working in them and even diggers - no public health and safety in China!) but I thought it as a very nice town. It looked alot like a set from the kung fu film Iron Monkey, which is probably why I liked it. Anyway, I spent two days wandering around it, visiting a Taoist temple with another model of hell, this time mostly tortures, old county courtrooms, a few houses of old bankers and took a walk half way around the town on top of the walls. The hostel I stayed at, the Yamen, was very nice, in an old house with friendly staff, and the night I left we made dumplings which we then ate (for free!).

My next destination was to be Songshan, famous for it's Shaolin Temple where Shaolin Kung Fu, subject of many many films, often featuring Gordon Liu, was invented. To get there though I had to go to Luoyang and then somehow get a bus, then find somewhere to stay, which was all rather daunting when you don't speak Chinese and haven't been travelling for too long. Luckily though, Chinese people are very friendly, so I had nothing to worry about. First of all there was a lady on the train who spoke English, and once she knew where I was going, she said that one of the other people in the carriage was going there to visit his son who was training at one schools there (amusingly, while she was doing this the guy sitting next to her was cleaning out his ear with his keys!). Hard sleeper in China is a bit like platzkartny in Russia: each "compartment" is open to the corridor and has a pair of three story bunk beds, and was how I travelled all the time except for very short journeys when I got hard seat - this is very crowded and the seats and too comfy. Anyway, I also mentioned that I was meeting a pen pal there, and she phoned her up to arrange it, and with the guy's help I got to Dengfeng (the main town) without any problems, he even paid for the bus, and met my friend AiLing who had found me a hotel for a pretty reasonable price.

All this help meant that by lunch time on my first day I was there had somewhere to stay, so I went to lunch with Ailing and her friend, then we went to Taishi Shan one of several steep mountains that tower over DengFeng. We climbed as far as the gate where you had to pay to go any further (you have to pay to go up most well known mountains in China) and there met an Israeli girl called Lala (seriously!) and a Swiss girl called Lena. This was handy because it turned out they were going to the Shaolin Temple the next day and AiLing was busy so I'd be able to go with them. They knew someone at one of the schools, and they'd offered to get them in for free provided we got up at 5am and took part in their school's film. it turned out to be a really pointless video, just people posing, and why they needed random foreigners looking confused in the background I don't know.

I had hoped to climb one of the mountains that day, but Lena, the only other one who could be bothered to get up that early, didn't feel like it, so after breakfast in the temple village with some guys from London visiting their friend (the one who got us in for free), we continued watching the filming until I got bored with the obvious fakeness of it so went of on my own. It turned out you had to pay to get into the temple itself, but they gave me a student discount without me asking so I wander around. It was insanely over restored, having been last rebuilt in 2004 or 2005 (!), but I but some random school girls, Yang CuiCui and Hu CuiLi, who decided to adopt me and practice their English, taking me all over the temple again, then to the Pagoda Forest (which was quite impressive) to meet all their friends, taking as many photos as they could with me and them in it, it was pretty funny. Apparently the schools around there take it in turns to have a weekend visit to the temple so they can practise English with the tourists.

After a while though they had to go so I decided to climb up to the Damo cave (the Damo was the founder of the temple) which was up a steep hill. Before I'd got very far another girl, Dong YanYang had adopted me and climbed all the way to the top with me, along with half her school, and then down again where she introduced me to the rest of her class including their teacher Lili, and after having my picture taken with all of them (what they do with these pictures I don't know) they gave me a lift back to the town. The next day I climbed Shaoxi Shan, the tallest of the mountains, with AiLing, which took about 5 hours from the bottom on one side to the temple on the other. Quite a few other Chinese people were climbing the mountain, some in their suits and even some women in high heels! People were very friendly, sharing food and asking about me, it was great fun, and the scenery was pretty impressive, despite the usual haze you get everywhere in China, although the atmosphere was somewhere spoilt on the last 45 minute leg down to the temple by the piped music. Especially near the temple they had the same droning chant playing constantly, it was very annoying.

After that I thought that as I was there I may as well see a kung fu demonstration, but it was rather disappointing, seeming more like an acrobatics show combined with cheap tricks than a demonstration of a practical fighting system. The next day I went to a nearby town to see the Ancient Observatory, which was not swarming with people like the temple, in fact most of the time it was just me and AiLing. In the afternoon I went to the Songyang Academy, which was also pretty quite, and the over restoration was counteracted a bit by the two trees that really did look very old, although whether they really 4000 years old as climbed I don't know.

From Songshan I intended to go to Hua Shan, one of the sacred mountains of China, but when I got there it was pretty wet and miserable so I just got on the next train and went straight to Xi'an. This was a rather disappointing city. I saw the main attractions, the Terracotta Warriors, the Drum and the Bell towers in the first day with a Dutch guy called Bart, but was not too impressed. It's hard to tell if the warriors are original or remade for tourists, and you can't wander down amongst them, just look from above, they not red as they often look in photos, they're grey, and also my camera, which had been getting gradually worse since being dropped in the Gobi desert, was entering its death throes. The evening was much better though as there were two French punk bands staying at the hospital who I had met at the station on the was to Hua Shan, and they invited us to a meal with them. Meals in China are better the more people you have because then you can order loads of different dishes and try loads more, so the meal with 12 people was one of the best and cheapest that I'd had.

Unfortunately though the next day I was ill, so after visiting the other main tourist attraction, the Big Goose Pagoda, and being unimpressed, I bought a train ticket to Chengdu for the next day and missed the bands' gig that evening. Bart did introduce me to a shop with some very tasty baked goodies though.

At this point I think I should have a tea update, as their haven't been any since Russia: in Mongolia there was mare's milk tea, which was sweet and salty. I quite liked it, although Sally thought it was disgusting. Apparently they brew it for ages, which is why there was a weird black sediment at the bottom that looked like earth. Then in Beijing I tried several teas at the hostel with exciting names such as Dragonwell and Maojian (which was the best), in Pingyao I tried green and white teas, the latter being the best, and finally in Dengfeng there seemed to be two types of tea, the yellow flower tea and the one apparently made just of water with nothing in it, both of which were tasteless.