Datong And The Yungong Buddhist Caves March 19

March 19

We negotiated a van for our trip to Yungong Buddhist Caves and Beijing the previous evening with the tour agency located in the hotel lobby. Actually, it appeared that both the tour agency and hotel were one in the same. The van showed up at around 0800, right on time.

01_vantobeijing

As nice a van as one could ask for and it should be for 2500 Yuan. Of course, the tickets to Beijing would have cost each of us 500 yuan, so we were actually saving money. Plus we would get to spend the morning at the famous Yungong Cave Complex outside of Datong on the way to Beijing.

02_comfort

Is this the way to travel, or what?

The caves did not disappoint as one can easily see. Enjoy the pictures from one of the great Buddhist sites in the world. Magnificent!

3_Moretourists

03_YungangVisitHall

04_Entrance

05_EntranceDoor

06_Insidedoor

07_EntrancePath

08_thegroup

09_ThePath

10_ColdSunee

Yes, it was cold, very cold with a little breeze thrown in for frostbite now and again.

11_Monument

12_Anothermonument

13_pose

14_Goldheldbudda

15_templeview

16_Yungangtemple

Yeh, that water is really frozen and there was still snow on the ground in patches. It was cold!

17_Pagoda

18_Carvings1

19_Carvings2

20_WoodTemple

21StillCold

22_WoodMask

23_Tourists

24_carvings3

25_Carvings4

26_Carvings5

27_Carvings6

28_Carvings7

29_Carvings8

30_PhotosAllowed

31_Carvings9

32_Niece

Here is a tourist picture of my niece who lives across the street from us in Bangkok. She was using an Olympus Pen F or some such little powerful camera. The family had a great time but we had to get on the road to Beijing so we left around noon for the expected six hour trip.

Surprise! We had to wait for around two hours on a huge traffic jam one hour out of Beijing. Unbelievable! Too many vehicles wanting to enter the capital city no doubt. I understand that this is not unusual!

We checked into our hotel at around 8 PM and relaxed by finding a place nearby to eat. Another long and fruitful day in China.