The Black Lung

We woke up yesterday morning to the lovely town of Datong. Datong sucks big time. It's a coal mining town. The air is thick, blackish, and it smells like fireworks burning and concentrated car fumes, to say the least. And, it is colder than Beijing. Today's high is -2 degrees Celsius, with an overnight low of -16C.

Despite Datong being a complete hole, there are two incredible ancient sites nearby. We booked a tour through CITS, the Chinese Information Tourist Service. They tend to over charge foreigners, but in this case it was the best option to see both options in one day (we wanted to get the hell out of Datong). There were four of us--Yvette (the Aussie girl who we were rooming with), Luke from South Africa, and the two of us. Our "tour bus" was actually a taxi. We drove about 2 hours to the Xuankong Si, the Hanging Monastery. It is an incredible structure built more than 1400 years ago into the side of a cliff face in a canyon. We had the whole place to ourselves (no one else was stupid enough to be out in that weather-it was probably -10C out there). The monastery is a series of pagodas linked with wooden bridges, stairways, and narrow corridors, and many shrines to Buddha. In one room, the Three Religions Hall, there was a statue of Buddha, Laotzu, and Confucius sitting side by side (the three major religions of China today). It was incredible. While we were up there, it started snowing quite heavily with huge soft snowflakes floating down. We were especially haggled by the touts at the bottom, since there were only four of us for them to hassle. I did buy some yin/yang Buddhist bell things, which Nige bargained for a cheap price.

Next we headed back through Datong and on to Yungang Shika, the Cloud Ridge Caves. On the way, everyone in the car fell asleep except us-that includes the driver. I saw his eyes get heavy and start to close through the rearview mirror. Nige tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Hey. No sleep!" He nodded in agreement, rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. The smoke was better than dying. We gave him some lollies we had left over from Jackson's birthday party, which he seemed to enjoy, especially the Redskins. He wouldn't take the lollypop though-he just laughed at it, probably because it's for kids.

The Cloud Ridge Caves are just outside Datong. They are a series of shallow caves stretching over 1 kilometre and contain over 50,000 Buddhist statues carved into the sandstone mountain. It was amazing how detailed they were, chipped slowly out of the rock between 460-494 AD. There were tiny Buddhas, medium Buddhas, large Buddhas, and a few huge Buddhas over 15m high. We could see a lot of influences from Indian Hindu dieties like Shiva and Vishnu. The Wei Dynasty used the caves as a place to pray for rain. They were truly magnificent, despite the damage from the coal mine that is literally right across the road.

Arriving back in ghetto Datong, we ate some lunch at Mr. Lee's California Beef Noodles, U.S.A., a Chinese fast food type chain we've seen a few times. The logo of Mr. Lee has a striking resemblance to Colonel Sanders. It was okay, but greasy in true fast-food fashion. The food was missing a few of the 11 secret herbs and spices.

We said farewell to Luke and Yvette and went to get the hell out of Datong. It is a 20 hour train ride to Xi'an, our next stop. We had booked hard sleepers, hearing that they are suitable. However, we had different opinions once we got on the way. There are open cabins with 2 3-tiered bunks across from each other. I had the very top one, giving me both claustrophobia and vertigo simultaneously. Nigel had the very bottom one, which is shared by just about everyone as a seat while they're not sleeping. Nige trekked off to find out about an upgrade. It would have been tolerable, but smoking is allowed in these carriages, and our lungs were already filled with the nastiness of Datong, layered on top of the pollution from both Shanghai and Beijing. Nige got us an upgrade to soft sleepers. They are closed off cabins, with 4 beds each (2 bunks). Although we both had the top bunk, there was plenty of room for us to sit up comfortably and spread our stuff around, breathe, and sleep. It was not too bad, although a bit stuffy. The guys below us were quiet. If anything, we kept them awake with our coughing efforts to expunge the crap in our lungs.

The 20 hours passed not too slowly, and we arrived in Xi'an around noon. Despite the foot of snow on the ground, it is a bit warmer--only -2C today. We found a hotel near the train station and headed out to find a post office. The streets and sidewalks are so icy, covered with about an inch of compacted snow and ice, so we skated around Xi'an. Xi'an is a pretty nice city, although almost anything would be better than Datong. We walked along the streets, full of shops and restaurants, had some dinner and found an internet cafe (where the internet use is dirt cheap, but drinks cost over 30 Yuan).