As our time was short in Datong we decided that the best thing would be to book ourselves onto a tour to see the main sights around Datong. Normally I dread these things, but given the limited amount of time and thefact that getting to Kashgar as quickly as possible so as to retrace th silk road , then this was of minor importance. STill it sprung some pleasant surprises and ended up with me being fascinated, once again, at just what an influence the SIlk Road really has had.

We met the "group" at 9am and it was an odd mix of Chinese, foreign Chinese and Westerners who all piled into the beat up old minibus. For the most part the people were nice but I was pretty tired and slept. We then had the cringeworthy stop at the side of the road that pretended to be for the view but was in reality so that we could be harrassed by half a dozen mothers with their children with good draped over their arms for us to admire and hopefully buy. They persisted. We resisted and after 20 minutes of this we told the tour guide that we were fed up and wanted to go. Fortunately she obliged.

We arrived at the Hunyuan Hanging Monastery to be greeted by more hawkers trying to sell the odd "antique" or ghastly souvenir. Saying no didn't seem to work, so we simply walked past heading for the relative safety of the entrance. The hanging monastery itself is a curious building perched halfway up a cliff in the middle of a valley that leads to a local, sacred mountain nearby. It served as not only a monastery but a hotel for travellers on their way to this mountain, but because of the severe flooding in the region it was built halfway up the cliff so that it literally hangs from it. Needless to say that we had to climb several steps to get to the actual entrance and, like probably all the monuments in China, it was packed with local Chinese on holiday, which took away some of its marvel. Still the intricately balanced rooms were interesting. It was here too that Confucius, Loa Tzu and Buddist monks gathered in an empire-wide effort to bring religions together peacefully.

We had lunch nearby before moving on to the Yungang caves where Buddhist monks and sculptors had carved out both giant and minute buddhas into caves as a sort of holy sight for pigrimmage and worship. The walls were adorned with numerous smaller buddhas surrounding a central one. Each cave had its own story to tell and although I'd probably seen 50,000 carved Buddhas each one was stunningly beautiful. Furthermore, to my surprise there were interesting Zoroastrian relics int eh architecture as well as some rather Roman-looking columns and some Hindu Gods inscribed over the gateway to one cave iaccording to the ancient Indian belief that they would protect this Buddhist sight. Since Buddhism cam to CHina from India, this was an unexpected and exciting relic of the SIlk Road to discover!

We headed back after a long day to relax in Datong before our journey continues tomorrow toards Inner Mongolia.