Neither Dorit nor I wanted to miss even one day of work for this trip. We planned this trip like we never planned another: it was to be short, quick, comprehensive. We decided to fly out of Beijing on Saturday morning, use the day for a tour of the Hanging Temple and the Wooden Pagoda. Check into a hotel, walk around town, sleep. Wake up, have breakfast, visit the Yungang Grottoes and rush to the train station, to catch the 12:48 back to Beijing. Impossible? Read this.
Like a military operation, we woke up at 4:00 AM Saturday, left home at 4:30, and took off at about 8:00 AM (the flight left about 50 minutes late). Right before 9:00 we picked up our single suitcase carousel number 1 at the Da-Tong airport. It was the only carousel, and for the sake of comparison, the train station in Da-Tong is much larger than the airport. We were picked up by Nancy, our local tour guide and her driver, and we started our way to the Hanging Temple or Xuankong Si (http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shanxi/datong/hanging.htm). The drizzle didn’t interrupt our fascination. It’s an outstanding tourist attraction. You can read about it on the web, but I must document the following observation. When it was built, the area looked completely different. Right under it, a river was running, and I’m not sure whether or not there was a way to approach it other than climbing down from the top of the mountain. The tour guide explained that the way it was built was that the builders would climb to the top of the mountain, tie a rope to their waste, and do the work. The work included digging inside the cliff side, and inserting sizable beams of wood into the rock to support the structure. The place is breathtaking, and in my mind symbolizes peace, as three different religions are represented in this unique place: Buddhism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism), Taoism (道, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism), and Confucianism (儒家, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism). I can’t imagine other religions living under the same roof anywhere else. In fact, I can’t think of practices of the same religion living together under the same roof.
Surprisingly, there was no pressure to move on, or to finish quickly. We took our time exploring the place 
and enjoyed it very much. Then we moved on to the Wooden Pagoda. The Wooden Pagoda is considered the oldest and largest wooden structure still standing in China. You can only climb to the second floor, although it has nine, and only five are seen from the outside. Being used to steel and concrete structures, you can feel the difference right away. Massive wooden beams are everywhere, the rail and the stairs are made of wood. In fact, everything is wood. So much so that hundreds if not more of swallows are circling around the area, and it’s quite obvious that they chose the Wooden Pagoda as their home. It’s also obvious that no attempt is being made to drive them out. Guesses? Easy. Wood means wood worms. Juicy and delicious, they are a preferred delicacy for the birds. Apparently, the birds are good for the Pagoda, as it keeps the worm population at bay.
We went back to the hotel. We were almost ready to sleep at about 17:00 PM, but decided against it for the simple reason of not wanting to deal with a fully charged five year old at 4:00 AM the next morning. We went for a walk around the hotel, which is exactly one hundred paces from the city’s old Drum Tower. Not a lot to write about. Main Street China. Fruits and vegetables, small restaurants, and a lot of very curious people. We went for dinner – nothing to write home about, and back to the room. Shiri and I stayed up the latest. At around 20:30 PM, we were all sleeping.
Up at 7:00 AM, surprisingly good breakfast, and off we went to the most amazing and unexpected surprise of this trip. The Yungang Grottoes. From afar it looks like a bunch of holes in the cliff side. It doesn’t change when you get closer. But stepping into the first cave: breathtaking. A ten meter Buddha carved into the wall of the cave. Beautiful, smooth, detailed work. Around it, more Buddhas, and other figures. The place is peaceful (as much as an outstanding tourist attraction can be), it’s perfect for meditation, for reflection. As we went on, we saw more and more Buddha figures, in various states of completion. Some already eroded, many still intact. The one I liked the most was the one who was apparently carved by a slightly inexperienced craftsman. The feet are actually below ground level. As the tour guide explained, the artist misjudged the distance, and in order to complete the feet, he needed to dig underground. A failure in project management and execution well over a thousand years old…
As we always do, we bought a few souvenirs, and hit the road for the train station. As I mentioned before, the train station is way bigger than the airport. Nicer too. We boarded the train, and I must admit, generalizing based on our trip to Xian was an apparent mistake. The soft sleeper train from Da-Tong to Beijing was dirty, stuffy, it had no AC, no TV, and in some stretches it felt like it was crawling at the speed of a four legged animal. And I’m not talking about cheetah.
But something good came out of it nonetheless. I looked up the distance between Da-Tong and Beijing and found this world distance calculator. I’m embarrassed to admit that the distance between Beijing and Da-Tong is merely 265 kilometers. 165 miles. On average, the train traveled 44 kilometers per hour. 35 MPH. Shameful.
Lessons: a 39 hour trip can be satisfying but very tiring. Be more selective when you take a train. Da-Tong is outstanding, if you live in Beijing, don’t even think of missing it.
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