Hanging Monastery of Datong

My latest guests (JB, DW, and HPW)gave me the opportunity to take yet another trip to an unknown place in China. With the assistance of a couple of books and websites, we settled on going to Datong for a couple of days. Datong is no doubt famous for many things, but the object of our interest was the hanging monastery. It was too far to go just to see the monastery, so we added a few other sights as well. I'll be putting a few of those things in other posts.

We began our adventure in Beijing. I took a flight from Shanghai and met my friends in the lobby of their hotel in Beijing. A few hours later, we were met by our tour guide Jenny who took us to the train station in time to take the overnight train to Datong. We managed to secure a room with four bunks, and although one of us had to sleep in the room next door, the ride was uneventful. We arrived in Datong at 6:00 a.m. and were met by our local tour guide who took us across the street to our hotel for breakfast, check in and a shower. Once that was all taken care of, we piled into a van and set out for the monastery.



We drove for about an hour and a half from the flat terrain of downtown Datong to the mountains in the distance. Fortunately for all of us, the ride along the winding roads was mercifully short- the combination of the Chinese drivers and bendy roads is particularly nerve wracking. The approach to the monastery itself was not really noteworthy- the fields have not been cleared of the cornstalks, and the predominant color is a dull grey. The monastery, when you finally get to the cliff and the parking lot, looks really small.

The buddhist monastery has been attached to the side of the hill very high above the ground. Holes were drilled into the hill and then large beams of wood were inserted into those holes. The rest of the method of construction is not as clear to me, but somehow the monastery was attached to the protruding beams. It has been there for about 1500 years, which is amazing considering it is an all wood structure that is not protected from the elements. When we asked our guide why the monastery was located here, he answered that at the time, the emperor encouraged buddhism I think in the hope of finding favor with the gods. As to the location, it was near the emperor and located close enough to the city for provision, and far enough for peace. It does have the look of someplace that is built for protection, but the name (and the characters) implies that it has more to do with being closer to heaven.

I am not particularly comfortable with heights over a prolonged period of time, and the thought of a wooden structure pegged with wood (that rots over time - think 1500 years), with thousands of people that have been on it (think China over 1500 years), no real safety laws (and maybe hundreds of people on the structure that day alone), hundreds of feet off the ground- I started to get anxious to get down. But before I did, I took a number of photos of the statues, the wooden roof, the metal covered steps and the view from the top.