china 6 - datong (6/17)

the next morning i was at a slighter further bank when they opened. they didn't know what wire transfers were. on the way back i went to the first bank i went to, which, of course didn't suddenly accept money transfers. i went back to to my hostel and called the moneygram people, explained the situation, and got a really great rep who said she would call me back with a list of datong banks which worked with moneygram. she calls me back with the address of one bank. one. it was frustrating to say the least because the moneygram site listed like 70+ banks in the city where you could get money. anyway. i had no time anymore to get there but i told my tour people the situation and (since this is china) they were really cool and said they would take me to the bank after the tour.

hanging temple

and off we went on the tour! our first stop was the hanging monastery which is not terribly close. we hit traffic a couple times on the way there, and at one point our driver started driving on the other side of the highway. it wasn't just him tho. a bunch of cars were going in the wrong direction on the other side of the four lane highway. at some point the road narrows a bit and so we start to play chicken with cars going in he correct direction. it was pretty spectacular. the swiss couple, english couple and i were really amused. not sure what the two korean girls thought about it. but i think it's one of my favorite moments from this whole trip: rickety bus with windows open speeding along on the wrong side of the highway, driving at other cars and slipping away last moment, cars so close that you can reach out and slap high fives with the opposing drivers if you weren't worried about getting you arm knocked off but not scared cause the drivers here are so precise that you know if you got your limbs snapped off it'd be your fault entirely and no one else's.

the vertical posts don't support much

the hanging temple was kind of cool but not really too much? it's small. and it's very sturdily supported by crossbeams going into the rock tho they're hard to see and what you really see if the spindly sticks that don't look like they can hold up much of anything. but it's neat. they built it 491 which is ridiculous and that's not a typo. but they built it halfway up the mountain so the flood waters wouldn't get to it ad so it wouldn't get blown off the cliff up above.

built right alongside the wall!

after the hanging monastery we went back to town for lunch and then the tour person took me to the bank where, no surprise, they also had no idea what moneygram was. no card? no account? no money. duh! ...

of the 53 grottoes, a few were closed for renovation :(

then we went to the yungang grottoes which are pretty close to town and really quite awesome. they remind me of petra, which i really hope to go to someday.

 

the entrance to the grottoes are really weird. new stuff with indian influences. which is very strange to see in china. tho i do of course know that buddhism came from hinduism. but while very pretty, it's not nearly as cool as the grottoes themselves. they started way back in 450 it took some 50 years to carve over 51,000 statues into 53 grottoes (caves). the smallest carvings are only 2cm high and the biggest is 17m high. while there is certainly damage due to water and other elements, a lot of the carvings are still very beautifully preserved.

the grottoes are definitely the most amazing thing i saw on this trip. while i certainly love pingyao it's not awe inspiring the way the grottoes are. many of the images were carved by monks or artists employed by the emperor, but a number of them were carved by ordinary people just moved to do. it's pretty cool.

that night i got on an overnight train to beijing. before coming on this trip, this was the only portion i had "worried" about. going from xian to chengdu in 2005 the overnight hard sleeper was a room with four beds. there were four walls, tho the doorway was open, covered with a curtain. turns out that i needn't have worried. this train had 6 people in a "room." three walls and a completely open fourth "wall" that was actually the walkway for the entire car. i also think our car was completely full. the guy across from me in silk boxers was leering a bit, but i just put on my eye mask and frowned at him until i fell asleep.