Datong Travel Blogs

People i met here, who contributed to and improved my trip: Juliana (Russia) We arrived into a snowy Datong around 5.30am and checked in to Feitian Binguan hotel. We caught another couple of hours sleep before jumping on a bus out to the remarkable Yungang Caves. I'd never heard of these…

un mardi soir a chateauguay.... Pas vraiment... The subway incident: Deux megwoe ren, pour sauver qque Yuan, on decide de prendre le metro a 21h pour se rendre a la gare de train. Erreur. Non seulement l'heure de pointe bas son plein, le metro est ultra bonde. La mentalite locale dicte que …

We continued overland from Beijing to Xian, with a few stops along the way. We took around four days to make the journey. Our first stop was in Datong. We took an overnight train from Beijing, and arrived early on a cold morning. The hotel we'd picked out of the Lonely Planet didn't appear to be a…

I woke up pretty late today, the tourguide was already away to have breakfast apparently. I looked outside and saw a cloudy day was upon us. The landscape was different from the mongolian landscape, much greener, more farmland and the villages looked different. We made a stop at Chinglungchi…

here i am, sitting in my dorm room in datong. good news first, it's only 35 yuan (bit less then 6 swiss francs a night), only 4 beds in the room (2 not taken) and the water is hot. but that's about it. datong is one hell of a sh.... dirthole - 2.x mio population but looks like it was just bombed. a…

These are some photos and a few journal entries I wanted to share from my first solo backpacking trip. It lasted 9 months. In retrospect, I wish I had been on this site to write a blog in real time and learn from all the people here. Also, I just love seeing that map Travbuddy draws up outlining my route! I'll be adding my photos whenever I find some time so bare with me while I get them them up.

Lately I rediscovered Led Zeppelin, as probably everyone knows, our music mood swings every few weeks or months liking/loving a differerent band/artist for a certain period of time. I remember I had a picture that would match this song and after some searching, I found it: Led Zeppelin - Stairway …

07/29/09 ~ 08/02/09 The opinion evil mountain color endurance truth were beautiful. the trees which are dense the picture of one width were same as. That place it is taking a walk it is born as but listened to appear impression to have having become the natural part. I could also feel different in the country side(datong), which I could never felt back in the city(beijing).however, It was changeable weather in there. anyway I think it was a really unique vacation. so I remember it the most!:)

Shows what I knew, eh?

We caught our sleeper train with no problems, and arrived in Datong in the wee hours of the morning. A very eager dude who worked at the Touist office at the station guided us to the nearest and cheapest hotel. We got there, and met our roomate- A female buddhist monk! She was so friendly and helpf…

Hengshan Mountain is often on Chinese swordsmn novel, film or soap opera..  I read Hanging Temple since I was kid.. The feeling is different from book.. but.. it still so so so amazing!!   World heritage-Yungang Grottoes.. Must and worth to go!!

I get to the train station in the early morning.  My CTS guide is waiting for me.  This is the first time I've ever used CTS.  All my previous travel has been completely independent.  In a way, this is much easier.  I want to see three things today:  The Yunggan Caves,…

My long far-east tour, started in Nepal (did the Everest Trek), continued into India and then back to Tibet, Mongolia and amazing China. Finished the tour in the middle due to some Job in London... went back a year after, look for that Travelogue :)

Today my privat driver drove me all the way to the Haning monastery. 75 km south from Datong(1.5 hrs). What a poor country this appears to be. Very small houses and wagons pulled by donkeys. Fruit was sold by the road. We also drove over a mountain ridge. It was really beautiful. Finally no industr…

Thanks to Mary, we have avoided a night train ride. Instead, we drive to Datong and we reach the hanging Temple. Xuankong Si, literally built on a cliff to avoid floods which had detroyed previos temples. Light rain, easy climb and then walking in the narrow wooden passages suspended in the air. …