Touring Beijing in Winter Part 5: Datong – Hanging Monastery
When we arrived at Datong at around 7AM, we hired a driver to take us to two of its tourist destinations, the Hanging Monastery and the Yungang Grottoes. Our first stop was the Hanging Monastery.
The Hanging Monastery is located 65 kilometers away from Datong City (about an hour and a half hour car ride). It is a Buddhist Monastery situated on the cliff side near the foot of Heng Mountain which is one of the Five Sacred Mountains of Taoism.
It is a wooden temple built in 491 with wooden posts for support as it clings on the cliff side. Knowing how old it is, it’s really an ancient architectural feat.
Because it was winter, we were the only visitor there when we arrived at around 8:30AM. It was quiet and cold and we even saw some leftover snow from the previous week’s snowfall. The riverbed was dry as well.
My sister told us that it was very rare that there are no other tourists around and to have the place all to ourselves. If you look at photos of the place on the internet, mostly there are people included.
Usually, it takes a while to tour this place because they only allow a limited number of people on its narrow walkway at a time. Yay for us! Hooray for winter I guess.
One of the amazing things about this monastery is the mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism elements. There’s a sculpture of Sakyamuni, Confucius and Laotzu together inside one of the rooms.
However, the most notable statues are in the Hall of Three Saints which has true-to-life sculptures of Weituo, Sakyamuni and the Guardian.
Here are some more shots of the place:
Thanks to my sister for taking some of the photos.
We did the whole tour in under an hour and couldn’t stay much longer because it was really freezing in the place. Couldn’t wait to get into the heater warmth of our ride. It was really one amazing place that took my breathe away when I saw it.
Next stop is the Yungang Grottoes.
TOTAL COST:
Entrance ticket – 55RMB
Part 6: Datong – Yungang Grottoes
Part 2: Pros and Cons
Part 3: The Olympic Green
Part 4: Going to Datong
Part 5: Datong – Hanging Monastery
Part 6: Datong – Yungang Grottoes
Part 7: Temple of Heaven
Part 8: Jingshan Park and Forbidden City
Part 9: The Egg, Tian’anmen Square and Qianmen Street
Part 10: New Summer Palace
Part 11: Great Wall of China
Part 12: Old Summer Palace
Part 13: Shopping!
You might also be interested in:
- Touring Beijing in Winter Part 4: Going to Datong
- Touring Beijing in Winter Part 6: Datong – Yungang Grottoes
- Touring Beijing in Winter Part 12: Old Summer Palace
- Touring Beijing in Winter Part 1: The Plan
Filed under: Travel
How I’d love to see the Hanging Monastery. Amazing architecture. Swerte nyo naman, walang tourists. Places such as these are always lovely to capture when there weren’t too many people.
I saw your Hall of Saints photo on your blog taken inside The Hanging Temple, what I’m hoping to learn though is an image Sakyamuni, Confucius and Laotzu close together and in the same image inside this Monestery. Can you point me to such an image?
Here you go. it’s from wikipedia.
Thank you for the info on the Wiki photo. I will eventually put it at the top of the blog post. It is just what I wanted.
http://wendellmaedeantravelblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/hanging-temple.html
hi.. may i know how u manage to rent a car with driver.. is it taxi or u can get it at the train station or need booking arrangement before u arrive?
is it worth to visit Datong or Chengde?.
tq
there are taxis at the train station and my sister haggled for us to rent one to visit hanging monastery and the grottoes.
Datong and Chengde yes to both if you have time!! Make Datong a priority though.
Datong taxi prices differ depending on where you want to go. We only opted for hanging monastery and grottoes. They could offer you to go to the Great Wall in that area, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, Mt. Hengshan and Pingyao.
We didn’t go to the Great Wall as we’re going to do that in Beijing. Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is not worth the travel as the pagoda is falling apart and the entrance fee is expensive. Mt. Hengshan is good for a day trip but if you take the cable car, you would have to pay extra to enter the temple grounds. I didn’t get to go to Pingyao but it’s an old walled city which was used to film Raise the Red Lantern.
In the city of Datong, there’s a 10 dragon screen similar to the one inside the Forbidden City and the drum tower in the middle of the city which you can’t get in.
For Chengde, you can check my blog post about it.
http://clompy.com/beijing/2008/01/chengde-hebei/