The Cloud Ridge Caves & The Hanging Monastery

Editor's Pick Award

Our Editors awarded this travel blog entry for providing relevant information that may be useful and inspiring for other travelers.

One of the wooden facades to the Cloud Ridge Caves

View more photos 

So late that night we boarded our train for Datong, being stared at every step of the way as we made our way through the crowds at the station.  We were travelling 'hard sleeper', which means the entire carriage is effectively a dormitory, with three levels of bunks.  It's quite comfortable, although utterly lacking in privacy.

The next morning we rolled into Datong, where we quickly booked ourselves onto a tour.  The first stop was at the Cloud Ridge caves, or Yungang Grottoes.  These are a series of more than twenty grottoes carved into a sandstone ridge.  The main caves contain enormous statues, either of Buddha or of Boddhisatva (a Buddhist who has earned nirvana or enlightenment, but not taken it yet).  The statues and carvings are awesome, both in scale and execution.  Despite their huge size (the largest is 17 metres high) their features are still human and delicate despite the passage of centuries.  The caves are entirely man-made.  40,000 workers laboured for 64 years, hollowing out first a 'skylight' to provide light to work with, then carving the statue from the top down.  The walls are encrusted with hundreds of tiny buddhas carved into niches; at one point there is a tablet or plaque from the 5th Century, marking the carving of a particular set of buddhas.  The larger statues were originally covered in painted mud to protect the soft sandstone from the elements.

Another view of the wooden facades

View more photos 

Next we travelled to the holy mountain, Hengshan, where over a thousand years ago a monastery was built 150 metres up the cliff face, in an attempt to protect it from the constant flooding of the river below.  The monastery is an architectural marvel, supported by beams driven horizontally into the cliff face.  As you walk around its various levels, you can feel it flexing in the wind.  Quite unsettling, given there's only an ancient, wooden handrail between you and thin air. 

We had a great time on the tour, despite the weather taking a nasty turn and blasting with freezing winds and snow for the afternoon.  Tonight we catch the night train to Pingyao, a small city south-west of here, boasting the only completely intact city wall from the Ming dynasty.