Datong Photos!!!!

We arrived safely in Datong and found our hotel (easy, you can see it from the station exit - all lit up in neon :)


Photos in the hotel lobby....recognize anyone???


The view from our hotel window...this is a coal town and it was very chilly out there!!!!


The next day we rode out to the Yungang Grottoes (caves...whatever :) On the way we passed through some serious coal towns and saw a couple of more scenic things, too :)

We saw this dragon screen in front of a temple - this is a three dragon variety, but there is a big Nine Dragon Screen in Datong near the Drum Tower (we didn't get a chance to see it, but we had seen this one and a photo of the big one so we don't feel like we missed too much)


We also saw this monument on the side of the road. We don't know what it is or what it's for, but the sign letting you know it was there was just as big as the one for the temple that had that dragon screen, so we thought it must be important :)


We spotted this cool bridge and I just had to have a little stroll on it to check stability and get a closeup of the black river water....scary!


We saw tons of donkey carts pulling loads of coal.


This is the coal mine and it's surrounding town, presumably for the mine workers - it's only 1km from the caves!!!!



You know what A's like, she likes to take pictures of the housing we see on the roadsides to get a feel for how people live...here is more of her handiwork :) These are some of the dwellings that we saw as we rode out. A lot of what we saw was so uniform in color that only the red Chinese New Year banners (we presume they are) give the place any color. These places looked really grim - like they were abandonded, but we saw some people going into the villages, so they probably aren't.









We arrived at the Yungang Caves and it looked a bit familiar (having been to Ajanta and Ellora you get a feel for these things :). One thing we noticed right off is that there were some wooden facades in front of some of the caves.


The caves are not numbered in the order that they were built, but there was a bit of a theme to them. We started on the right and saw the largest of the caves.


Then we moved to the caves with the facades. The facades have done a great job of preserving the paintings and the colors and surfaces of the sculptures. Also keep in mind that these caves have been maintained throughout the dynasties, not just abandonded (which is what happened when Buddhism was no longer thriving in India)

The facades close up....



One of the paintings...


Many of the colors on the sculptures....






This is truly a beautiful place with some amazing sculpture....





There were several large Buddha sculptures, this one is in the open and is the most photographed at Yungang.


There were quite a few others. There are holes in the sculptures because they were covered with another layer (a mud and hay combo we saw on some of the others) and then painted. Still, the carving underneath is something special :)





There was a lot of work being done prior to the busy season (about half of the caves were closed, but luckily not the best ones :).


The ride back into town was a ripper - we had a tailwind! It was a nice change from the slog out in the morning. By the time we got back to town, though it was 5pm and it was getting quite chilly, so we bee-lined it back to the hotel to warm up.