Week 111 - Wutai Shan, Datong, Beijing (China)

After our manic night trying to find a bed in Wutai Shan, we treated ourselves to a lay in. When we did venture out, we realised just how closed up the town was. The season ended a week previously and it seemed like everyone had packed up and left. We waited for a shuttle and before long an empty bus pulled up to take us a couple of stops to the centre where we bought chairlift tickets and headed up to Dailuo Peak for views over the valley.

View from the chairlift to Dailuo Peak, Wutai Shan.

Wutai Shan is a sacred Buddhist mountain range, with five peaks enclosing a small, grey, bland tourist orientated town, with a river running through. The area is thought to be the earthly abode of Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and in the Ming Dynasty, Tibetan Buddhists, for whom Manjusri is important, starting arriving and building new structures in place of the hundreds destroyed in the 9th century official persecution of Buddhism. Now there are still over 50 temples in the valley and dotting the surrounding mountains, with a high concentration in the town itself. Since we only had one day we decided to concentrate on seeing the larger, most important sights in the centre. 

After Dailuo Peak and a wander around the temple at the top, we walked back down to the main road and headed north. We stumbled upon a newer, brightly painted temple where we were the only visitors, before walking further to a couple of striking pagodas in a disheveled complex. Turning back towards the centre and after an expensive lunch stop at one of the only places that seemed to be open, we found the white stupa of Tayuan Temple, shown on every poster of Wutai Shan, and walked around spinning the prayer wheels, before discovering the entrance to Xiantong Temple. Xiantong Temple was beautiful with huge buildings set around serene courtyards with the central halls painted with murals and filled with golden statuary and a small Bronze Hall cast and gilt in 1606 and weighing 50 tonnes. 

Tayuan Temple stupa, Wutai Shan.

Inside one of the temples in the Xiantong complex, Wutai Shan.

The Bronze Hall, Xiantong Temple, Wutai Shan.

By then, Rhys was tired and jumped on a shuttle bus back to the hotel. I wandered around a few other smaller temples in the centre before visiting Shuxiang Temple where the main hall was closed but the sounds of the monks inside chanting and drumming reverberated around the courtyard. Next, I decided to hop on a bus a couple of kilometres south to the Nanshan Temple. The bus dropped me at the side of the main road from here I had a 20 minute walk up a steep hill through the forest with no one around, it was incredibly peaceful. The temple was worth the walk, with steep staircases leading though stone carved arches to seemingly never ending courtyards with views across the valley.

Nanshan Temple complex, Wutai Shan.

By the time I was finished at Nanshan the sun had dropped behind the Western Peak and it was time to head back to the hotel, struggling to find a shop open and selling anything but mushrooms to pick up pot noodles for dinner.

We had the alarm set for an early start as we hadn’t been able to find reliable information for bus times online. We ended up waking up the hotel staff to refund our key deposit before walking the kilometre south to the bus station. We had a very cold hour wait at the station before the minibus left and in -6C temperatures, lost the feeling in our toes. Thankfully, they turned the heater on on the bus and before long we were roasting and content, passing through stunning mountain scenery and frozen streams, to Datong.

Once in Datong. We jumped off the bus and made our way to the hotel we’d booked. Although a little far from the centre, we were impressed with the room, considering our hotel in Wutai Shan was supposed to be 4 star, this place had a lot more going for it, including 24 hour hot water and a heater in the room.

We were only in Datong for one night and for one reason, to visit the Yungang Grottoes. After getting directions to the bus stop using a translator app with the receptionist, we headed out to brave the cold. The bus took about 30 minutes and at the end of the line we wandered around until we found a ticket office. We then had to enter the complex through a brand new theme park-esque temple area. The grottoes date from the 5th century and contain upwards of 51,000 statues, the oldest collection of Buddhist carvings in China. 

Buddhist carvings in the Yungang Grottoes, Datong.

Although not as big as the Longmen Grottoes, there were more larger statues, some set in niches and some inside caves. Out of the 45 caves open to the public (there were originally 252 caves), there were two that were particularly impressive, one with a 17m high golden Buddha surrounded by hundreds of smaller images with carved and painted surfaces, and one with a square pagoda you could walk around with every inch of surface carved and decorated and with more giant Buddhas in niches. 

Huge carved Buddha, Yungang Grottoes, Datong.

Once out of the park, we caught a bus back in to Datong and having not eaten all day, were drawn to the stalls of fruit and cakes lining our road. We ended up buying bags full of goodies and spending the rest of the evening in our room snacking and enjoying the hot shower.

The next day an English speaking guest at the hotel wrote the name of the bus station we needed to head to in Mandarin for us to show to a taxi driver. Before too long, we were at the station and buying tickets for the next available bus to Beijing. We had an hour to wait, grateful that this time the station was heated, before boarding our coach for the 5 hour drive. Once away from the huge coal mines and chimneys that surround Datong, we drove along spookily dead modern highways, passed field after field of yellow, dry crops edged with perfectly straight, leafless trees and sandstone mountains in the distance. 

The bus pulled in to the station and we followed the signs to the metro. Before long we were at the hotel. Rhys loves duck and we figured being in Beijing, a Peking Duck dinner should be on our to do list. A bit of research and we found a restaurant in walking distance of our hotel with great reviews and it didn’t fail to impress. It was a small restaurant with not much atmosphere on a back alley but the duck was delicious despite the screaming Chinese family next to us. Rhys finished the meal with the duck brain, considered a real delicacy.

The next day we decided to head over to the Forbidden City, one of the biggest tourist attractions in Beijing. The City was home to the Ming and Qing dynasties and for 500 years, entry uninvited was forbidden and punishable by death. It was a playground for the ruling classes. After queuing for 30 minutes with thousands of people to buy tickets we were herded through the main gates and into one of the huge courtyards that fill the complex. The sheer size of the place was impressive but we found it got quite repetitive with alley after alley of orange, green and terracotta walls punctuated by courtyards centred with huge halls. We probably would have got a lot more out of it with an audio guide but we just meandered through the maze of buildings and gardens, stopping at a clock exhibition and a treasures exhibition, trying to avoid the crowds for a few hours before deciding to head back to the hotel.

Me in the Forbidden City, Beijing.

Posing by one of the many orange, green and terracotta walls, Forbidden City, Beijing.

For dinner that evening, we walked around trying to find a night market we’d read about. When we finally found the right street, we were a little disappointed, unlike Xi’An it was very regimented, all the stalls looked identical and were in purpose built carts and the food they were selling were more curiosities than good food, starfish, spider, snake and scorpion kebabs and overcooked meat and tasteless dumplings.

Unidentifiable meat kebabs at the night market in Beijing.

It was Sunday the next day and i’d read about a weekend market that sounded like our cup of tea, we’d been talking about buying yet another vase and had enjoyed the time we’d spent browsing antique markets in Xi’An and Pingyao. We caught the metro south and found the huge market which took us hours to work our way around, astonished by the number of beads stalls and stalls selling nothing but polished walnuts. The walnut craze has been something we’ve seen everywhere we’ve been in China, they sell for stupid amounts of money and people buy them as status symbols, looking for perfect symmetry and age and then roll them in their hands to aid circulation. A vase had caught our attention early in the day but we were quoted £150 so left it to look elsewhere, when we couldn’t find anything we liked as much we headed back to try our bargaining skills, walking away with it for £40, feeling rather chuffed with ourselves.

Browsing the antiques market in Beijing.

After stopping back in our room for the afternoon, we had tickets for an early evening acrobatic show at the Chaoyang Theatre. The show only lasted an hour but the time was filled with men tumbling through hoops, women balancing and twirling parasols with their feet, contortionists, 12 people on a bicycle and then the finale had 8 motorbikes in a cage, lit up and somehow managing to dodge each other.

Still talking about what we’d just seen, we jumped in the metro to find another restaurant i’d read about, Mr Shi’s, this time one of the highest rated dumpling restaurants in the city. It was in a lively area crisscrossed with hutongs (alleys) to the north of the Forbidden City with lots of bars and restaurants. When we arrived we were surprised to find it empty (until we realised it was the second restaurant and the original was few doors up), but again, my research had done us well and we ended up ordering a second helping they were so good.

We had to collect our tickets to Mongolia the next morning and walked over to the CITS office. As most of it was closed for the APEC meet, we’d been given instructions to pick them up from a guy in finance who didn’t speak English. 

Next, we walked over to Tiananmen Square. Although we’d been nearby when we went to the Forbidden City we hadn’t actually seen it. The Square is the world’s largest public square and is nothing more than a concrete grey expanse, with serious security, surrounded by Soviet style buildings with a giant poster of Chairman Mao at one end. Although visually it wasn’t very appealing, everyone has seen the videos of the 1989 army tanks standing off with pro democracy demonstrators and we felt we had to visit.

Giant flower arrangement, Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Guards, flags and a Chairman Mao portrait, Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Rather than spend longer in the centre, we then decided to take the metro out to the Summer Palace on the outskirts of town. It was nothing like the Forbidden City. Set around a large lake, there were pavilions, bridges and gardens with the southern bank lined with temples, palace buildings and intricately painted corridors. We made the error of circling the lake first so by the time we got to the buildings we were getting tired and only picked a few of the larger ones to visit.

Me on one of the bridges by the lake of the Summer Palace, Beijing.

Pagoda on the southern bank of the lake at the Summer Palace.

We had another sightseeing day planned the following day, this time to one of the Seven Man-made Wonders of the World, the Great Wall of China. Although we’d initially hoped to get further out to less restored, quieter areas, as it’s a fair way from Beijing and not easy to get to in off season, we opted for a tour from the hostel around the corner from where we were staying. After a free breakfast, we boarded a bus and spent 2 hours driving out to the Mutianyu section of the wall. We paid extra to take the cable car to watchtower 14, to allow us more time on the wall and immediately knew we’d made the right decision. Far from being a busy touristed and overly restored stretch, the wall was quiet. Our guide had recommended walking west, passed watchtower 23, the boundary to the Mutianyu section, and passed the signs telling tourists not to go any further. From this point on, we were on the unrestored 700 year old wall and it was beautiful.

The first version of the wall was built during the Qin dynasty in 221-207BC, when China was unified for the first time, joining together smaller walls from previously individual kingdoms (the same guy who ordered the Terracotta Army for his tomb). The wall was intended for defense but performed better as an elevated highway. The wall was rebuilt and strengthened several times over the coming centuries and was eventually abandoned when the Manchu armies invaded. The tourist industry has saved it from turning to dust and there are sections that have been heavily restored with theme park-esque additions, for the domestic tourist industry. 

Rhys on the restored section of Mutianyu, the Great Wall of China.

The section of wall we visited in known for it’s Ming Dynasty guard towers and mountain vistas with the wall snaking off into the distance, winding over craggy peaks. It was far more popular with westerners than domestic tourists so was free of shouting tour group crowds. After we passed the tourist-no-go signs, we found ourselves on a crumbling, overgrown path and at one point the wall became so steep and was covered in crumbling loose rocks that we practically had to climb on all fours. We set ourselves a target of reaching watchtower 29 in the limited time we had and ended up walking so fast, to ensure we had as long as possible on the unrestored part, that we made it all the way to 37 before having to turn back to meet our group for lunch. The view from 37 was the highlight of the whole section and well worth the hike.

Me clambering up one of the unrestored sections, Mutianyu, Great Wall of China.

We had a decent Chinese buffet for lunch and a chat to some of the other people on our trip before boarding the bus again for the drive back to Beijing. 

As it was our last night in China, we’d already decided to go back to the hutong duck restaurant for dinner and were treated with pancakes as good, if not better than the first visit and with out the accompaniment of the screaming Chinese family we had the previous time.