A day in Datong

Remember when I said there was English everywhere? Well, I was wrong.

There is a lot of English. A LOT. Significantly more than I was expecting. However we have mainly stayed on a pretty touristy trail. For me, this is not a big deal, for others, there is some criticism for this.

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Great Wall of China. Yep, that’s what I thought. Now, keep your hand up if you want to see it while enjoying your trip to China. Ok, I see some hands still up. I’m not surprised. Why on my first trip to China would I avoid the Wall? Just because it has become a tourist attraction? Because there are shops that sell post cards and selfie sticks on the way up the wall? Because more white faces are found here than locals? High-five to the guy who realized he could make a living off of selling crap with photos of the Great Wall platered to it. I get the desire of wanting to avoid big tours and groups, which we do at all costs, but I refuse to avoid a huge, historical, and astonishing place simply because it’s been built up. We just try to be smart, go early or later in the day, explore on our own and avoid a fanny-pack clad bus full of tourists,and find lesser-known spots to experience something (like the Wall). It’s not a bad experience. I'm still learning about the culture. And it's not a too-watered down experiecne.

So anyway, although we avoid the tourist experience as best we can, we are still visiting locations that are built for the masses, which naturally brings a lot of English with it.

Enter Datong isn't a quick trip, and fewer travelers take the time to travel there. Fewer travelers means less English...a lot less English. Datong has access to two main points of interest. We planned to see both and take the night train to our next city later that evening, which was an aggressive timeline. We had also heard rumors and read that doing this without a guide was extremely challenging; not only was very little written in English (think street signs, bus stops, maps, etc.), English wasn’t often spoken, either, and travel to each site took a few hours and many bus transfers. There was a significant amount of errors that could easily occur. One missed bus stop alone would ruin the whole adventure, leave us lost in the middle of no where, and casue us to miss your train.

“Let’s do this on our own.”

“Yep, I agree. Let’s do it."

So, we mapped out a plan to get from the bus stop at the train station (we'll call that A) to the first site (B) early in the morning, then instead of trying to get from site B to site C (the second site), which we read was extremely difficult to maneuver, we would backtrack to A, and travel from A to C instead. We had time to do it this way, and it made the most sense, as the more rural areas of B and C would be even harder to navigate; we had a slightly higher chance of finding help if we got back A, which was in a much more urban area.

The bus stop only had Mandarin, so we tried our best to match symbols. A nice man pulled over to help us, sharing what we think was that the bus doesn’t run this early in the morning. We had connected with a dutch woman, Virginia, on our way to the bus stop who was attempting the same journey as us. She had heard it was extremely difficult as well, and was planning on finding a tour to join up with. She politely let us know we were crazy for doing it on our own. The nice man laughed a little and drove away. We later realized he was a taxi driver and wanted us to pay him instead of taking the bus. He was a little fibber...

Our bus pulled up shortly after the taxi driver said it wouldn’t, and we hopped on, attempting to properly pronounce our destination along with the bus stop for our transfer, as in “I’m tyring to get here. So I need to get off here. Please let me know when that is.” We sat down and rode around the city in darkness. Virginia shared her plan and stories of the failed attempts of friends or family who weren’t able to access both sites on their own.

Lucky for us, our stop was the last one. We got off, and Virginia stayed on, something about not thinking this was the right stop. We wished her well as we hopped off the bus. I have no clue where she thought she should have been…

We found our next bus fairly easily, hopped on, and again, waited for the last stop. We are used to being the only westerners in many places, and the stares we get aren’t abnormal. The ride didn’t take too long, and we were extremely grateful for the shelter. Although Minnesotan, I am a huge baby when it comes to temperature. Have you ever seen me try to get into a pool or lake? By the time I’m in the water, everyone else is out. I don’t think I was made for the cold.

An hour or so later, we hopped off the bus, still surrounded by the night sky. Wandering around for about 20 minutes brought the realization that the caves we were here to see were not open to the public without entering through the very closed looking building guarding the entrance. I saw my breath with every tired exhale (remember, we just hopped off our first night train; no coffee or hot breakfast had kicked off our morning). I was miserable; tired and cold is an awful combination. Crampy back muscles from our wild and bumpy night were not happy about carrying my pack. I wasn’t feeling very pleasant. Oh, and it was dark out and hard to see.

I have an amazing husband who only wants to make sure we are safe, warm, and happy. So, he did what any good protector would do; found shelter.

30 minutes later, I was slightly warmer and protected from the elements, my pack was safe and off my back, I had brushed my teeth and washed my face and was feeling a little more human. We ate our breakfast of packaged food. It would have been perfect had our shelter not been a stinky women’s bathroom. We shared a giggle and rolled our eyes. This is so glamorous!!!

We literally hid in the bathroom for about 45 minutes, until the sun’s rays started popping up over the horizon and workers were milling about. I was nervous we would cause alarm if the cleaning crew found two white people crouched in the corner of the dark rest room, and didn’t want to get into any sort of scuff. We packed up to reluctantly leave our warm little retreat.

Except we couldn’t, as the door was stuck. I mean really stuck. To the point where pulling it open caused the top part of the door to bend while the bottom was jammed so well it risked snapping the door in two. We tried and tired and tried to pull it open, and eventually accepted someone would need to get us from the outside, where they could push the door in.

The risk and embarrassment of being found in this situation led us to a desperate last attempt at the unyielding door. It finally flew open, tossing us back a bit, and we ran out into the cold. I immediately wanted back into that stinky, warm bathroom.

The doors were still sealed, the parking lot still empty, the few Chinese faces who were up exceptionally early for what seemed like a morning workout were still staring at us (which, can you blame them? A disheveled pair, one with a big beard, the other a knotty mess of hair, wearing all of their clothes to stay warm just exploded out of the women’s bathroom. I totally accepted those stares). We walked around for a bit to stay warm, but the crisp cold air continued to bite straight to the bone. We found another opened door to what seemed like an office building and squatted inside. We stayed until the sun was all the way up, and went back outside to try our luck with the entrance to the caves.

Eventually, after waiting outside for what felt like the millionth minute that chilly morning, we made it into the building to buy our tickets to access the caves. We barely had a chance to defrost before being ushered back outside to explore.

The Chinese Buddhist temple caves (or grottoes) are incredible rock-cut architectural masterpieces carved right into the earth. You could walk right into them, holes into a hillside, or march right to the top of the earth above. Each one houses an equally amazing carved Buddha. Some grottoes were huge, while other smaller. Some Buddha’s were massive. Others itty bitty motifs of a pattern. All displayed beautiful detail and craftsmanship, with the unfortunate scars of a misunderstood conservation attempt. Years ago, it was believed drilling large holes into the Buddha’s and carved structures and inserting wooden rods to support the crumbling rock would sustain them, when in reality, caused a much greater amount of deterioration. Regardless, the grottoes were extremely interesting and breathtaking. Well worth the disastrously cold morning we experienced.

We walked around for a few hours, peaking into each of the 40 some caves and admiring the tenacity of the ancient artists. Not surprisingly, we exited through a gift-shop like bazar and purchased a tasty ground peanut treat we saw frequently throughout our time in China; peanuts (and many other nuts and seeds) are hand-hammered against a wooden plank until nicely crushed, well before peanut butter stage. Sugar syrup or other sweeteners are added, and a combination of smashing, pulling, and stretching makes a delicious little candy like treat. It’s a complete labor of love; the peanut butter obsessor that I am loved the labor that was put into it.

Post snack, we strolled passed the shelters that protected us earlier that morning (i.e. the bathroom) and rode the bus back to the train station bus stop where we started our adventure earlier that morning. We quickly found the next bus we needed, hopped on, and attentively watched for the bus terminal where we were to take a bus for the 2 hour journey to our next destination, The Hanging Temple. We knew the terminal was between 8 and 12 stops away. So we counted each stop and kept our eyes wide for anything that might resemble a terminal.

By stop 13 or 14 we got concerned. Having only seem something that sort of looked like it may be a bus terminal back at stop 5ish, we got nervous and hopped off at stop 15 or so. We asked the bus driver, awkwardly in our attempt at Mandarin, where the bus terminal was by name, and followed his pointing finger down a busy road with much construction. After about a 25 minute walk leading to no bus terminal, we headed back to where we exited the bus, hoping for a sign or English speaker. We found neither, and decided to eventually get back onto the bus the way we came and give that semi-looking bus station a try. Slightly annoyed, but not surprised, we were in fact right about the bus terminal, which was nowhere near stops 8-12, let alone where the bus driver so confidently pointed, bought the bus tickets to the Hanging Monastery, and settled in for the ride. Before Will dozed off for a nap, we high fived at our success, and smirked, thinking “WE DID IT!!!!”

After a very long and bumpy two-hour ride, we arrived in the mountains where the Hanging Monastery is just before 5:00pm. A short 20-minute taxi ride would deliver us right to the entrance.

The Monastery is a stunning temple built into a cliff 246 feet above the ground and the other main tourist attraction in the Datong area. Built more than 1,500 years ago, the temple is the last existing temple with the combination of three Chinese traditional religions: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. We had already decided not to go in (since it’s expensive and my dad is a structural engineer) and we’d read that the most impressive part was seeing the structure suspended by beams on the mountainside, not the interior.

We decided to buy our return ticket in advance, before getting into a taxi, to guarantee we had a seat back to the train station since we were taking the night train later that night. Much to our despair, the last bus left at 6:00. We had made it all the way to the Monestary, were in arms reach, had defied the odds and successfully navigated the extremely confusing bus system numerous times. We were a mere 20 minutes away. We had JUST exited the bus, and were being told to turn back around and march right back on it, just to arrive back in Datong hours before our train left, twiddling our thumbs. We knew it was way too risky to attempt to see the Monestery; if we couldn’t find a taxi back in time, we would lose the money from the train ticket, and be stranded in a small mountain town without a place to stay with little support to find one.

We opted to take the 5:00 bus back, since there was no point in waiting at the bus station for the 6:00 bus (which was more like a parking lot where buses happened to drop people off and pick them up again), and somehow remained in decent spirits as we rode the 2 hour bumpy ride back, annoyed that we spent 4 hours and a 2 round trip tickets to see nothing. We knew it was the right choice to go back and not take the risk, but it was a huge bummer.

While writing this months later, I’ve learned that Time magazine named the Hanging Monastery one of the world's top ten most odd dangerous buildings. That makes me feel a little better that we missed it…

We settled in at Mr. Lee’s, a KFC-colonial look-alike restaurant that served super hot food and had outlets and wifi, ate our first legitamte and hot meal of the day, and tried to avoid the cold until the night train departed. We were exhausted, annoyed, and in awe by all we had accomplished (and failed at) that day.

I’m not sold that it’s impossible to see both main sites without a guide. However, since I can’t say I successfully figured it out on my own, I’m not sure I can claim it isn’t impossible, either.

From Datong, with Love,

Sara + Will