DATONG

On Wednesday we ventured into the country by way of a 5 hour sleeper train to Datong. The train was quite comfy, with excellent duvets and pillows!! We made the terrible mistake of trusting the station restaurant before boarding. I thought I had ordered a broth/soup but instead got hot water with raw tomato and curd floating in it! Rocio's rice had too much "chopped de gato" and tasted like it had been cooked last week. So we figured we'd splurge on the cafeteria on board ... only to find it was closed. We purchased what we thought was a bottle of red wine - for consolation - but it turned out to be sickeningly sweet grape juice, perhaps bottled in 1982! So we ended up munching Ritz crackers and Donettes which we had bought by chance at a street stall a few hours before. The following morning, we arrived in Datong and decided to go to the nearby hotel for a continental breakfast buffet. I think we ate half their food supplies! Maica had the best fried egg and bacon sarnie she's ever eaten. It was breakfast from heaven. I ate 5 pieces of toast, half a plate of fruit and loads more! While the city of Datong itself is truly horrible - coal mining city = everything balck, including the boggies coming out of our noses all day!! However, the reason for our visit were the magnificent Yungang Caves and the Hanging Monastery 1 hour away by bus. I have never seen anything like this before. A Qing dynasty wooden monastery carved out on a rock overlooking a dam. It was built as an offering to mother nature for it's ever so frequent floods. It has survived numerous earthquakes and floods and lies solitary in a canyon of overturned rock. It is spectacular. The caves, on the other side of town, were the location where several dynasties carved out Buddhas during the Ming and Qing dynasties. You walk into a cave and all of a sudden you are standing at the feet of a 60 metre high statue of a Buddha with carvings surrounding it all over the roof and sides. There are 55 caves like this in the entire area and they have been named a National Heritage site. Another wonder of human art. (I have pics of all this....will load asap). That night, we went to what we understand is the region's best restaurant and indeed, our Lonely Planet guide did not lie. We enjoyed the best stew yet, with noodles like only Jenny used to make back home when I was 11 years old (pansit) and some amazing dumplings! We continued in our quest to find a bottle of drinkable red wine. This time it was "Great Wall of China" wine.... aged5 years. Dare I say it tasted like its name would have you think it tasted! ...yeah...the Chinese don't do wine. (I may end up becoming a fan of beer. The beer here is really quite good).