I have reached Datong in the morning and after checking in I grabbed something to eat and went straight to my first destination – Yungang Grottoes. The grottoes are only a few kilometers away from the city so I took a Didi (Chinese Uber). Taxis are very cheap in China, it costed around 2.5 euros for 20-minute ride.

Once you get to the scenic area, you will pass through a wonderful Buddhist temple on top of water. As all the information about the temple is in Chinese, I cannot say much more about it.

After that you will reach the main attraction – grottoes. Yungang Grottes are one of four main Buddhist grottoes in China. The others are Longmen near Luoyang (which I have already visited), Mogao Caves and Maijishan Grottoes in Gansu Province. Since I have only seen Longmen, I can say that Yungang is much smaller compared to Longmen. Also, most of the carvings in Yungang is inside caves, while the main carvings in Longmen are visible from outside.

The advantage of having statues inside is you can use colors and they will not be ruined by weather. The downside is you need to pass through small entry points to see the inside rooms containing the carvings. In China this means you will have to wait in long lines!

Even though I had to wait for 15-20 minutes to enter a cave and then you would spend 3-5 minutes max inside to take photos, it was worth it. As you spend much more time waiting in the line than enjoying the cultural achievements of Chinese Buddhists, you are glad that this is not a very large complex.

Taxi took me back to the city and its famous city walls. Datong is one of the ancient cities with city walls still preserved. The walls date from the time of the Ming Dynasty, the last Han Chinese dynasty, famous for its blue and white porcelain. The old city is a square with 4 main gates, the southern gate is the largest and the best protected one. My taxi took me to the “wrong” gate – Eastern Gate, where I learned that only Western Gate and western section of the wall are open to the public. The rest of the city walls is closed for construction works. So I decided to walk through the old town via one of the two main roads (East to West Gate road). It was a very “interesting” walk. There were many empty spaces and a lot of construction work all along the road. It certainly did not feel as the main road of the ancient city.

As I reached the Western Gate and climbed the city walls, the horizon opened up and I was able to see the scale of Chinese operations. They are leveling the entire areas of the “old” city destroying all communist and other modernist architecture. These will be replaced with nice, beautiful 1000 years old buildings?!

I have railed against Chinese version of “renovation” many times in my blogs. The beauty of Dubrovnik is that it is special as its old city has been preserved. Taking another city which has not preserved its old building, leveling all the buildings you have declared “inauthentic” and then building new buildings that should look like they are 500 years old is beyond ridiculous. But, this is what the Chinese are doing. As a protest, I refused to visit a single temple or monastery in the old town since I cannot be sure if this was rebuilt 3 months ago.

As I was walking through the massive city walls – opiši veličinu – I was wondering, If I had the opportunity to rebuild one ancient city, which one would it be? Even though Troy was a strong contender, I finally decided on Carthage. If Tunisians decide to rebuild ancient Carthage, I would forget all the shit I said about “Chinese renovation” and take the first plane to go on a pilgrimage to honor my favorite ancient trading empire.

It was already late afternoon and it was time to get something to eat, take a well deserved nap and return to the old city at night. The city walls and its towers are perhaps even more impressive at night, though photos look worse.

During the night you see the full horror of the reconstruction of Datong – the old city is basically deserted. Only tourists come there during the day and once the entry to the city walls closes, there is nothing to do anymore, and the historical centre of the city becomes basically dead.

Next day I woke up early to catch the 7:30 am bus number 901-1 to Hengshan. The Northern Great Mountain was the main reason why I came to Datong. I have already climbed the other four Great Mountains – Taishan, Songshan, Huashan and Hengshan in Henan. The Southern Great Mountain is also called Hengshan, pronounced exactly the same, just to make it more confusing. I wasn’t able to find good instructions about how to get to Hengshan from Datong and how to hike to the top. So again I had to wing it as I go along. Of course, I made many, many mistakes.

After about two hours I reached a small town, where I took a taxi to the main scenic area. I could not find good instructions online so I followed instructions on AMAP – Chinese Google Maps. AMAP told me to get off at this stop and then I took a taxi. However, I think I should have gone to the end of the route. It would have taken me to the main bus station where I could take the free bus to the main scenic area. Well, the taxi was around 2.5 euros so not a lot of financial damage was done.

I made my second mistake when I decided not to take the bus but instead to walk all the way up to the top. I did not know that the lower part of the hiking path was “under renovation” so I had to walk halfway to the mountain top using the same road that buses used. No nice scenery, no nice views… just many buses passing by.

After one hour I reached a large parking lot, which also marks a halfway point. From there you start the proper Chinese hike – you only go up, and you only go on stone paths with steps. Before I set off for the mountain top, I took a detour to a very nice Taoist temple.

The main hike to the top is really nice. You pass through many temples and you are surrounded by forests. The Northern Great Mountain is very different from other Great Mountains. Since you are much more north, the dominant trees are pines.

It took me an hour to reach the top from the halfway point. The view is stunning – one side is very mountainous, while the other side is completely flat – the Great Northern Chinese Plain, the birthplace of Chinese civilization. Additional plus is that of all the Great Mountains, this one was the easiest to climb, for sure.

Going back, you can take the cable car but I decided to walk back to the half-way point. I even took a detour to one more temple. At the half-way point I took the bus back.

My day was not finished, close by (some 5 kilometers away), but in another scenic area – meaning another entry ticket to pay for, is the famous Hanging Temple. I took a free bus to the Hanging Temple and then I realized I made my third mistake. I should have bought the ticket at the tourist offices near the Hengshan Mountains. I mean, how does this make any sense?!?!?! Overall, China is a very well organized country but sometimes it really pisses me off. Luckily, there is a special officer who specializes in “cases” like me. Basically, he orders the ticket through his phone, the administrator at the ticket office at Hangsheng mountain sends him the QR code through WeChat that I have to scan to pay the ticket. This is how you get your ticket. The poor guy had to do it twice because he first sent the QR code for WeChat, which is useless for me so he had to send it again for Alipay.

As you enter the scenic area you are quickly overwhelmed by the Hanging Temple. As you are amazed by the creative genius of the people that have built it, you start wondering: how does it survive an earthquake?

But soon your wonder turns to horror… not again… not another line! As you can clearly see form the photo, the paths inside the temple are very narrow and there is a limit on how many people can be at the temple at the same time. So, it was time to que up.

After over an hour I was finally let inside. You will have a lot of time to enjoy the wonders of this temple and also be scared as walk above the steep cliffs, since the paths are so narrow that barrely one person can walk through these passages. This means a long line will be formed. My line was especially slow as there was an old Buddhist monk who visibly had problems walking in front of me. He was using a walking cane and three women were helping him to go up and down the stairs. After about 15 minutes, I realized it was not a monk, it was a Buddhist nun! She was clean shaven and she wore the same kind of robe as monks do. Her robe looked a bit like Roman togas.

To get to Datong, I first took the free bus to the bus station and there I took bus number 901-1 again to Datong. This is why I think I made the mistake of exiting the bus in the town, before the main bus station, on my way to Hengshan.

I got to my hostel just before 6 pm so I just had enough time to grab some dinner and get ready to catch my train to Pingyao at 8:15 pm. I already ate at this restaurant before so I knew that they prepare something like crepes with vegetables. It is salty but I could not resist. I brought Chinese version of Nutella with me and stuffed myself with crepes. One crepe is less than half a euro!