Evening train to Da Tong. Overnight on the train.

In early morning, arrive in Datong. Visit Wooden Pagoda in Ying County, Suspending Temple on Mt. Hengshan, overnight Da Tong Hotel.

Wooden Pagoda

The county should allay Jiada the Fogong Temple in Shanxi Province in the northwest county should Buddhist Temple Temple, commonly known as Yingxian Wooden Tower. Built in Liao - Ning 2002 (Year 1056), Jinmengchang six years (Year 1195) Upgrading completed. China is the most ancient existing maximum configuration of a wooden tower construction, and only a wooden structure pavilion-style tower, as the nation''s key units to be protected.

The Hanging Temple, also Hanging Monastery or Xuankong Temple (simplified Chinese: 悬空寺; traditional Chinese: 懸空寺; pinyin: Xuánkōng Sì) is a temple built into a cliff (75 m or 246 ft above the ground) near Mount Heng in Hunyuan County, Datong City, Shanxi province, China. The closest city is Datong, 64.23 kilometers to the northwest. Along with the Yungang Grottoes, the Hanging Temple is one of the main tourist attractions and historical sites in the Datong area. Built more than 1,500 years ago, this temple is notable not only for its location on a sheer precipice but also because it is the only existing temple with the combination of three Chinese traditional religions: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The structure is kept in place with oak crossbeams fitted into holes chiseled into the cliffs. The main supportive structure is hidden inside the bedrock.[1] The monastery is located in the small canyon basin, and the body of the building hangs from the middle of the cliff under the prominent summit, protecting the temple from rain erosion and sunlight. Coupled with the repair of the dynasties, the color tattoo in the temple is relatively well preserved. On December 2010, it was listed in the “Time” magazine as the world''s top ten most odd dangerous buildings.

Visit the Yun Gang Caves, Nine-dragon Screen, Huayan Monastery, and Shan Hua Monastery. Back to Beijing on night train.

Yun Gang Caves
Yungang Grottoes, an Example combining the Chinese Culture with Western One in 5th Century A.D.

      As one of the three leading grottoes in China,  Yungang Grottoes are located in the south of Wuzhoum mountain north bank of Ten-Mile River. It is about sixteen kilometers to the west of Datong, Shanxi Province. All the Caves, extending about one kilometer from east to west, were hollowed out of the mountain. The 254 Caves are made up of three groups of east, middle and west with 45 major grottos and 209 secondary caves. The carving area ammouns to more than 18000 square meters. There are 1100 niches and 51000 statues with the biggest statue of 17 meters and the smallest statue of 2 centimeters. It''s a historic monument combing the Chinese culture with Western one as  it is a Buddhist art treasure house of royal style, which a nationality has spent nearly a dynasty completing for the first time ever since the Buddhist art was spread to China. It was promulgated  one of the first group of  key cultural relics preservation units by the State Council in March 1961. Yungang Grottoes were inscribed into the World Cultural Heritage List by the UNESCO In December 2001  and became  first group of  5A levet Chinese Tourist Areas in May 2007.

      Yungang Grottoes were formerly called the grotto temple of Wuzhou mountain  and renamed Yunggang Grottoes in Ming Dynasty.  As Li Daoyuan, the famous geographer in the Northern Wei Dynasty,  once described in the “Commentary on Waterways classic”, “It was excavated into the mountain because of the rock structure. It is rare and unusual in the world because of its grandness and magnificence. With halls in the mountain and palaces on the water, smoke and temples look at each other. From the distance, the great woods and beautiful landscape await you.” 

      As the big- scale grotto temple relics built in the Northern Wei Dynasty, It took seventy years to complete the project starting  under the reign of Emperor Wencheg who rivived Buddism, and ending in  Zhengguang Era. Rich in content and magnificent in sculpture, the Grottoes was a large  Buddhist temple constructed by the skillful craftsmen by groups and generations with best technology and funding from the royal family of the Northern Wei Dynasty.  As the older group grottes built in the east of Xinjiang, Yungang Grottoes are different from other older grottoes for its magnificent royal family style. The Buddhist culture and art shown in the Grottoes invloves in history, architecture and music etc. Yungang Grottoes has played an important role in artisitc history of China and World due to the highest Buddhist art level it represented as an example combining the Chinese and Western cultures and masterpeice of oriental sculpture art.  It is one of the top three grottoes with Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang and Longmen Grottes in Luoyang. Yungang Grottoes, along with Ajanta Caves of Indian and Bamyan Caves of Afghanistan, are the three  stone carving  treasure houses of fine arts in the world.

      The Buddhist art reflected in the Yungang Caves is divided into early, middle and late periods in the perspective of cave shape, statue pattern evolution.

Nine-dragon Screen

he Datong Nine Dragon Screen, built over 600 years ago, is presently the oldest and largest glazed screen in China today. It is three times larger than that in Beihai Park , Beijing City.

The screen, built for the thirteenth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), has been well preserved and remains intact to this day. It is made up of 426 specially-fired glazed bricks, with a height of 8 meters (about 26 feet), 2.02 meters (6.6 feet) thick and 45.5 meters (149 feet) long. The Screen can be divided into three parts, the pedestal, body and roof.

Arrive in Beijing in early morning.