The previous post is Enroute to Datong (June 03).
The next post is Pingyao (June 05).

Enroute to Pingyao (June 04) · Jun 10, 10:08 PM

I slept lightly, though the air cooled overnight. We arrived with the sunrise at 05:07 in the coal-dusted Datong. The people in the bunks below me insist I need tow days in Datong and two in Pingyao.

Off the train, pondering what do to till the CITS travel office opens at 06:30, I met Steve from Canada with Pelin from Turkey. We became acquainted over breakfast: shaved daoxiaomian in a thin meat sauce with tofu, hard-boiled egg, or meatball. A local dish, and good to eat.

Steve and Pelin are on the same track as me, and they’ve already made contact with the local CITS. We tour the Hanging Monastery and Yonang Caves together. It’s just the three of us — we are put into a taxi where we spend 3-5 hours that day. Each of us drifts off sooner or later — I wasn’t the only one who didn’t rest perfectly on last night’s train.

Both sites are impressive, but I haven’t done the research to really get into them. We ooh. We aah. We take pictures. The monastery was set on the face of a cliff, several dozen meters off the ground. I’ll remember the views, the architectural detail, and the nearby dam (which we were able to clamber all over). The caves are important history, but the statues are all covered with black coal dust, and many heads have been cut off by Colonial collectors. The countryside had clearer air than Beijing — the landscape was arid and eroded into canyons and gullies.

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