Four days in Datong: fifty thousand Buddhas cut into a sandstone cliff
Three nights in the old city: the Liao temples on arrival, the Yungang caves on the second day, a monastery bolted to a cliff and a nailless pagoda on the third, and the walls before you leave.
- Length
- 4 days, 3 nights
- Where you stay
- Datong
- Places
- 8 across 4 days
For most of a century in the fifth century AD, Datong was the capital of the Northern Wei, a dynasty founded by nomads from the steppe who took up Buddhism and then carved it into a cliff. Fifty one thousand figures, from seventeen metres high down to a few centimetres, in caves along a kilometre of sandstone.
That is Yungang, and it is the equal of anything in China. The city around it was later the northern frontier post of the Ming and holds two of the finest surviving Liao dynasty timber halls anywhere, plus a Ming dragon screen that is older than any other in the country.
Modern Datong is a coal town that spent a fortune in the 2010s rebuilding its Ming walls and old city, which divides opinion sharply. Judge it for yourself: what is genuinely old here is very old indeed, and it is signposted.
Highlights
- Caves 16 to 20 at Yungang, where five colossal Buddhas were carved to represent the first five Wei emperors
- The Hanging Monastery, forty rooms on stilts halfway up a cliff face, built in 491 and still holding
- The wooden pagoda at Yingxian, sixty seven metres of timber joinery from 1056, put together without a single nail
- The Liao and Jin halls at Huayan, with their original painted sculptures still in place
- Daoxiao noodles, the Shanxi speciality, pared off the dough in ribbons by a cook with a blade and a fast wrist
Where to stay
Datong, three nights
Stay inside the rebuilt walls. The old city is only about two kilometres square, the temples are all in it, and the restaurants and noodle shops on the pedestrian streets are the only decent eating in town.
The area around Datong South railway station is convenient for the trains and nothing else, and is a twenty minute taxi from anything worth seeing.
Day by day
Day 1 in Datong
Two Liao monasteries and the oldest dragon screen in China
Datong's own temples are the part everyone skips on the way to the caves, and they should not be. The Liao dynasty, founded by the Khitan, built in timber on a scale that has survived almost nowhere else, and two of their monasteries are here within a few streets of each other.
Huayan is the bigger. Its Jin dynasty main hall is one of the largest single timber halls left in China, and the smaller Liao sutra hall behind it still has its original painted figures standing where they were put in the eleventh century.
The dragon screen is five minutes away: a wall of glazed tiles built in the early Ming for the residence of a prince, older than the more famous ones in Beijing.
Eat noodles. Knife-cut noodles come from this province and every second shop makes them.
- 15:00
Huayan Monastery
ReligiousThe largest surviving Liao and Jin monastery in China, on two levels with a Jin main hall of enormous span and a Liao sutra library behind it holding its original painted sculptures. Give it ninety minutes.
- 17:00
Nine Dragon Screen
HistoricA wall of glazed tiles six hundred years old showing nine dragons, built as a screen for the palace of the thirteenth son of the first Ming emperor. Older than either of the other two in the country, and the palace behind it is long gone.
- 18:15
Shanhua Ancient Monastery
ReligiousA Tang foundation rebuilt under the Liao and again under the Jin, with four early halls still standing and a rank of Jin dynasty guardian figures inside the main one. Quieter than Huayan and just as good.
- 20:00
Erban Datong Sliced Noodles
EatKnife-cut noodles shaved off a block of dough straight into the pot, served with pork and whatever else you point at. The local dish, and the right first dinner.
With more time: The Drum Tower in the middle of the old city is unusual in sitting at street level rather than on a platform, and you can climb it for a view along the four main streets.
Day 2 in Datong
Yungang, and fifty one thousand figures
The caves were begun around 460 by a Buddhist monk with imperial backing and worked on for about sixty years. The Northern Wei emperors had recently persecuted Buddhism and then reversed themselves, and the five colossal seated Buddhas at the western end were carved as portraits of the five emperors who had ruled so far.
That is the thing to know before you arrive. The scale is astonishing on its own, but the caves are a political argument in stone about a dynasty of steppe nomads becoming Chinese and becoming Buddhist at the same time.
Go at opening and start at the far end with caves 16 to 20, which are the oldest and the biggest, then walk back east through the more elaborately painted later ones. Three hours minimum.
The provincial museum in town takes the afternoon and fills in the Wei and Liao periods properly, which makes the caves and yesterday's temples fit together.
- 08:30
Yungang Grottoes
LandmarkA kilometre of sandstone cliff carved with fifty one thousand Buddhist figures between about 460 and 525, the largest seventeen metres tall. Start at the western end where the five oldest colossi are, and allow three hours. Photography is restricted in the painted caves.
- 14:00
Datong Museum
CultureThe second largest museum in Shanxi and the place that makes sense of the Northern Wei, with most of the local excavation finds and a good section on the nomadic dynasties. A useful two hours after the caves.
With more time: The temple complex at the entrance to the caves is a recent reconstruction and free to walk through. It is not the reason you came, but the lake and the approach avenue make a good half hour while you wait for the bus back.
Day 3 in Datong
A monastery bolted to a cliff, and a pagoda held together by joinery
Two sights, sixty kilometres south, on either side of the same road, and they are the best day trip in Shanxi. Hire a car or take the morning tourist bus and do them in one run.
The Hanging Monastery is exactly what it sounds like: forty rooms on a cliff face fifty metres above a gorge, connected by plank walkways, apparently held up by a row of thin wooden poles. The poles are mostly decorative and the real load is carried by beams driven into the rock, which is more reassuring in theory than in practice.
The pagoda at Yingxian is the other extreme of the same skill. Nine hundred and seventy years old, built in 1056 with no nails anywhere in it, held together by interlocking brackets, and still standing after dozens of recorded earthquakes.
Neither takes long once you are there, and the driving is most of the day. Take lunch with you.
- 09:00
Hanging Monastery
ReligiousForty rooms on stilts and beams halfway up a gorge wall, founded in 491 and rebuilt several times, holding Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian shrines in the same building. Numbers on the walkways are limited, so expect a wait. Not for anyone with a fear of heights.
- 13:30
Yīngxiàn Wooden Pagoda
OtherThe oldest and tallest wooden building in China, put up in 1056 without a single nail, standing in the courtyard of a working temple. Only the ground floor is open, and the interlocking bracket sets are visible from outside.
With more time: Heng Shan, the northernmost of the five sacred mountains of Taoism, rises directly above the hanging monastery and has a cable car if you want to add a couple of hours to the day.
Day 4 in Datong
Up on the walls
Datong rebuilt its Ming walls between 2008 and the mid 2010s, on the original rammed earth core, which some visitors consider a heritage crime and others consider the reason the old city is worth walking around.
Either way you can now go up and walk the circuit, and it gives you the shape of the frontier garrison this was: four gates, a square plan, and the plateau beyond.
Datong South is twenty minutes away by taxi and the older central station is closer still, so this fits before any train.
- 09:00
City Walls
VisitA complete Ming circuit with four gate towers, rebuilt in brick since 2008 over rammed earth cores that in places go back much further. Walk a stretch of it in the morning for the view over the old city and out to the plateau.
With more time: The Confucian temple and the Great Mosque are both a few minutes inside the walls and are free, and either is a good half hour if the train is later than you thought.
Before you go
Getting there and around
High speed trains from Beijing take about two hours to Datong South. The older line into the central station is slower and lands you nearer the old city.
In town everything is walkable inside the rebuilt walls. Buses run out to Yungang in about forty minutes and to the Datong Museum in twenty.
The Hanging Monastery and the Yingxian pagoda are sixty kilometres south in opposite directions from the main road, and need either a hired car for the day or one of the tourist buses that leaves from the station in the morning. Agree the return time before you set off.
Tickets and timing
Yungang deserves three hours minimum and the site is spread over a kilometre. Go at opening; the light is better on the caves in the morning and the coach parties come after eleven.
The Hanging Monastery caps the number of people on the walkways at any one time, so there can be a queue for entry to the structure itself even when the site is quiet. Vertigo is a genuine consideration.
Only the ground floor of the Yingxian pagoda is open. That is still worth the drive, and the ticket includes the temple around it.
When to come
May to October. Datong sits at about a thousand metres on the edge of the Mongolian plateau and winter is severe, with the caves bitterly cold and the day trip roads occasionally closed.
Summer is dry and warm rather than hot, and the evenings cool off sharply even in July. Bring a layer.
Air quality has improved a great deal since the coal industry shrank, but a dusty spring wind off the plateau is still common in March and April.
Datong is not on most itineraries and that is largely a matter of habit. It has a cave complex the equal of anything in the country, two timber halls from a dynasty almost nothing survives from, and a monastery stuck to a cliff.
It also has none of the crowds those things would attract anywhere else, which is the practical argument for going now rather than later.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is Datong worth the trip from Beijing?
- For Yungang, yes, without hesitation. The caves are one of the three great Buddhist cave sites in China alongside Dunhuang and Luoyang, and Datong is the easiest of the three to reach: two hours on a high speed train from Beijing. Add the Liao temples and the day trip south and you have three days that few visitors to China make.
- How long do I need at the Yungang Grottoes?
- Three hours at a minimum and four if you want the later caves properly. The site runs for about a kilometre and the most important caves are at the far western end, so start there and work back rather than the other way round.
- Can I do the Hanging Monastery and the pagoda in one day?
- Yes, and it is the standard way. They are about sixty kilometres south of the city and roughly an hour apart. A hired car for the day is the comfortable option; tourist buses run from the station in the morning and set a fixed return.
- Is the rebuilt old city worth seeing?
- It is contested. The walls, the gates and much of the street frontage were rebuilt from scratch after 2008, and heritage specialists were not impressed. What is genuinely old, the two monasteries, the dragon screen and a handful of halls, is exceptional, and it is easy to tell one from the other.
- Can I change this plan?
- Yes. Copy it into the planner, cut a night if you only want the caves, or add one for Heng Shan and the sacred mountain above the hanging monastery.