Finally went to the Great Wall!

11.09.2015

The train arrived early Saturday morning and I attempted to go to Yungang caves by following the directions in the Lonely Planet. It was a few years old and the buses were different now, though. I took the #4 like it said, even though the driver told me not to.

Someone was yelling at me in Chinese trying to get me to take his taxi. I didn't want to get off and get another bus with that harassment going on, so I stayed on the bus until it got to the terminus, just like my book said. Unfortunately, the next bus wasn't there.

Luckily, I had recently seen bus #3, so I walked back about 1 km and caught it. That's the one that went to the caves.

The caves were really fantastic and definitely worth the trip. There were 40 caves but most of them were inaccessible, due to renovations I guess. The wind has really worn the structures down a lot. It's too bad, but what has been protected is still amazing. The most beautiful caves were painted in bright, dazzling colour a long long time ago, but those were the ones where photos weren't allowed. So, you'll have to be content with the statues that are monotone. Sorry folks.

After a few hours of ogling the statues, which are really interesting because you can see the Indian influence. Some of them looked almost Hindu.

Anyway, it was only noon when I got back to town, so I decided to go and see an old chunk of the Great Wall, finally. This one is actually free, and I was the only one to climb it probably that day. There were also sheep and cows grazing peacefully inside. I had to push some sheep off of the path to get to the wall, actually. It was just a bunch of clay and rammed earth, but I knew I liked it better than the renovated one in Beijing.

I picked up a beer from the slowest shopkeeper in the world and started down the road back to Datong, where I could flag down a bus back to the city. Earlier, I'd figured I'd stay in the village, but it was very very primitive and I didn't have a chance. I think maybe I saw the brothel, but that was about the only thing close to a motel in this place.

As I was walking along and sipping my warm beer, an old man with black teeth on a scooter with a toddler on his lap rolled slowly by and laughed at me. He yelled "PIJIU" and stopped a few metres in front of me. He beckoned me to get on the back. I thought maybe he knew I would get stranded there, so I jumped on and he brought me to the road. I said thank you many times.

As I was about to sit down and enjoy my peanuts and beer, the bus arrived. Maybe it was the last one, speeding toward me. I flailed my arms around, afraid it wouldn't stop, but it did, and I rode back to town with my open beer, yep. They laughed and let me on anyway.

Some people got off the bus near part of the city walls. The hostel I wanted to stay at was inside the walls, so I got off with them. In reality, I didn't know where I was at all. I cursed myself for being too impulsive, once again.

The street signs were non-existent, but eventually, I came across a ticket booth for something or other. Someone there even spoke English and he sent me in the right direction. I was about 20 minutes from the hostel on foot. It was on a pedestrian street in the newly renovated "old town". Yep, you read that right. You also have to walk through a kids' clothing store to get to this hostel, no joke. So confusing.

No one was immediately available to check me in, though. So, I wandered around asking everyone if they worked there until someone came out to take my money. The owner of the hostel said that if I wanted to carpool with three other people, she could arrange a trip for us tomorrow, but she didn't specify where.

I quickly fell asleep and the other woman in my room woke me up.

"OK, we found four people, do you want to go to Heng Shan tomorrow?" she said.

"No, no mountains," I mumbled, in a half-asleep daze. "Thanks, though. I've had enough mountains."

"Oh, OK, where do you want to go then?"

I threw a few pages of my guidebook at her and attempted to point at places that weren't mountains. I fell asleep again, but two hours later I was woken up again by this crazy woman.

"Hey, do you want to go to the mountain and then one of your places?"

"No... no... I don't want to go to the mountain, goodnight." Good god. And I pulled the blanket over my head and passed out again.

Yungang grottoes