5-Day Northern Shanxi: Yungang, Hengshan, the Wooden Pagoda and Datong

Morning or midday - arrival
Datong sits in a basin at about 1,040 metres, with the Great Wall running along the ridges to the north and the coal country of Shanxi to the south. It was the capital of the Northern Wei dynasty between 398 and 494, and that century is the reason the city matters: the caves at Yungang, ten kilometres west, were cut while Datong was the capital, and the monasteries inside the walls were rebuilt under the Liao and the Jin. Your guide meets you at the airport or the station and drives you into the city.

Shanhua Temple
Shanhua is the quieter of the two great monasteries and the better place to start. Its main hall, the Daxiongbao Hall, is a Liao building of the eleventh century: seven bays wide, single eave, and remarkable for the way the interior has been left open - the bracket sets and the ceiling are the decoration, and there is very little of the painted fuss that later dynasties added. The Thirty-Three Heaven Hall beside it is Jin, and the sculptural group inside is among the finest surviving Jin work anywhere. The courtyard is a working temple yard, and in the afternoon the light comes in low across the stone.

Lunch
Shanxi is noodle country and Datong is the northern end of it. Your guide orders knife-cut noodles in lamb broth, a plate of the local yellow cake made from millet flour, and something green, because the northern Shanxi diet is short on vegetables and the kitchens know it. A mild table is arranged alongside for anyone who wants one.

Afternoon - Huayan Temple
Huayan is the larger and more formal of the two, and its Thin Scripture Hall is the one that architects come for: a Liao hall of 1038, five bays, with a coffered ceiling and, around the walls, the wooden scripture cabinets that give the hall its name. The hall also holds a set of Liao painted sculptures. The monastery is laid out on an east-west axis rather than the usual north-south one, which is a Khitan habit and a small, physical reminder of who was ruling here in the tenth century.

Evening - the city wall
The Ming wall of Datong was rebuilt between 2008 and 2016 on the original footings, and walking a stretch of it at dusk is the cheapest and clearest way to understand the shape of the old city. Dinner afterwards inside the walls; the guide will pick somewhere within walking distance of the hotel.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Inside or beside the walled city, Datong.

Morning - Yungang
Yungang is a kilometre of soft sandstone cliff on the north bank of the Shi Li River, and between about 460 and 494 the Northern Wei court cut into it: 45 principal caves, some 252 niches and around 51,000 carved figures. The scale of the five Tanyao caves at the western end is the thing nobody expects - the colossal Buddha in Cave 20 is 13.7 metres high and stands, because the rock in front of it collapsed, in the open air. This is Buddhist sculpture at the moment when it is still looking west: the drapery is Gandharan, the faces on some figures are unmistakably Central Asian, and the Hellenistic and Indian elements have not yet been absorbed into a Chinese manner.

How we run the visit
Your guide takes the caves west to east, which is the chronological order and the reverse of the crowd. Caves 16 to 20 first, while the light is on the stone and the group is fresh; then the paired caves 9 and 10 with their wooden-fronted facades; then the dense, heavily carved middle section. The site museum near the entrance is worth twenty minutes for the architectural fragments recovered from the cliff face. Allow three to three and a half hours in total, and note that photography is permitted in the open but flash is not.

Lunch
Near the site, then back into the city. Your guide orders a Datong mixed grill of lamb and offal, a bowl of mutton soup with hand-pulled noodles, and the local buckwheat noodles.

Afternoon - the Datong Museum
The new municipal museum on the west bank of the Yu River is one of the better city museums in China and it makes sense on the same day as the caves, because much of what it holds came off that cliff: architectural fragments, Buddha heads, and the painted and gilded woodwork that the dry climate preserved. There is also a strong Northern Wei section on the finds from the tomb of Sima Jinlong, a Northern Wei prince whose burial furniture came out of the same workshops that served the court, and the museum explains, in English labels, the sequence of the caves. Admission is free with a booked slot; your guide handles it.

Evening
Dinner in the city. If the group has the energy, the Drum Tower quarter is worth an hour after dark.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Datong.

Morning - the Hanging Temple
Xuankong Si was built, according to the inscription, in 491, and rebuilt in the Ming and Qing. It is a monastery of some forty halls and pavilions pinned to the west face of a cliff above the Jinsha Gorge, held up by crossbeams socketed into the rock and by wooden posts that do most of the visual work and less of the structural work than they appear to. The whole complex is forty metres or so of vertical spread on a face that keeps the sun off it for most of the day, which is why six centuries of wind and flood have not taken it down. Entry to walk the plank walkways is limited and released in timed slots; we book for you and, if the slots are gone, we re-order the day rather than stand in the queue.

Lunch
In Hunyuan. The town is known for its cool noodles - liangfen, a starch jelly cut into strips with chilli oil, vinegar and a topping of fried broad beans - and for a cured donkey meat that the region eats cold. Your guide orders both, plus a hot dish.

Afternoon - Hengshan
Hengshan is the Northern Peak among the Five Sacred Mountains of China, and the temple that matters on it is the Beiyue Miao at the top: a hall and a terrace on the cliff edge at about 1,700 metres, reached by a stair of just over a hundred steps from the car park, or by cable car. The mountain is not high, but it is the northernmost of the five and the setting is dry, grey and austere rather than lush. Two hours is enough for the temple and the terrace. The cable car, if taken, is paid on site and is not included in the tour price; the walk up takes about forty minutes.

Evening - back to Datong
The drive back takes about an hour and a half. Dinner in Datong, or a late, light meal at the hotel if the day has been long.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Datong.

Morning - the drive south
The road to Yingxian crosses the Sanggan River plain, which is flat, alkaline, windy and full of poplars planted in lines. It is not a scenic drive and the guide will not pretend otherwise; it takes about an hour and a half.

The Wooden Pagoda
The Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogong Temple was raised in 1056 under the Liao, and it is the oldest and tallest surviving timber pagoda in the world: 67.31 metres, five storeys visible from outside, with four more structural storeys hidden inside, and some fifty-four different bracket sets doing the joinery. No nails were used. It has been hit by earthquakes recorded in 1305, 1553 and 1976, by shelling in 1948, and by a well-meant but damaging repair in the 1930s that removed the original bracing in the middle storeys - which is why the upper structure now leans and why visitors are no longer allowed above the first floor. You go in, look up into the five-storey void with its 11-metre Buddha on the ground floor, and walk the encircling veranda. That is the visit, and it is worth the drive: there is no other building like it standing anywhere.

Lunch
In Yingxian. Local specialities are the buckwheat noodles and a lamb stew cooked with Shanxi aged vinegar. Your guide orders both.

Afternoon - Yong'an Temple
Back in the county town, Yong'an Temple is a Yuan foundation rebuilt in the Ming. Its Hall of the Buddhist Doctrines is the thing: a single-eave hall with a Yuan date and a complete set of Ming murals and painted sculpture, including a group of fierce guardian figures that are far better preserved than anything of the kind you will see in a provincial museum. The site is quiet - half a dozen visitors on a normal afternoon - and the caretaker will usually unlock the hall and turn on the lights.

Evening
Return to Datong, about ninety minutes. Dinner in the city.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Datong.

Morning
Breakfast at the hotel. If your departure is afternoon, two things are worth a last hour: the Nine Dragon Screen on the east side of the old city, a Ming glazed-tile wall of 1392 that is the largest and oldest of its kind in China and is five minutes from most hotels; and the morning market on the streets north of the Drum Tower, where the city buys its vegetables, its live poultry and its noodles, and where nobody is performing for visitors.

Transfer
The private vehicle takes you to Datong Yungang Airport, about thirty minutes from the centre, or to Datong South station for the high-speed line to Beijing - two hours - or to Taiyuan. The guide walks you in as far as the entry check.

Meals
Breakfast

Accommodation
None - onward travel.