Datong Labor Union Hotel

After a 12 hr train trip I arrived in the lovely Datong! Yes, Datong looks great at 4.30 in the morning... nothing like the warm welcome of 30 plus army tanks lined up on the next train line and the ever present China Police / Armed Forces as you leave the train station. Luckily enough I had made pals with a Shanghainese girl at Pingyao station and it so happened that ...

... Some of it is really very good but my problem came with the non-vegetarian dishes&#8230; they use EVERY part of the animal which I found rather disgusting and therefore I continued mostly with my vegetarian routine&#8230; although even this was difficult as vegetarian food was sometimes scarce. I was also having trouble adjusting to no Pringles and no popcorn after Nepal!!<br><br>On Wednesday (10 Jun 09) I joined our small tour group at the CITS office, made ...

... of this hot pot was similar to the one I had had in Kaifeng. However, instead of a shallow stainless steal bowl over a gas burner, we ate out of a bronze cauldron, with the hot broth in a outer ring and a tall fluted cylinder in the middle that almost reached the low ceiling of the restaurant. It was delicious. I could barely move from my chair after the meal and would have slept like a baby that night if Lu Wei hadn't constantly hit me in his sleep throughout the night. The next day ...

... kancelarske budovy. No mesto se tim pripravuje v podstate o jedinou zajmavost. Hutongy jsme brouzdali dalsi dve hodky, mistni jsou hrozne mili a na bile dably tu jen tak nenarazi, takze prochazka moc fajn, pokud si clovek daval bacha aby neuklouzl po necem velmi osklivem :) Uprostred hutongu, uplne zapadly, v mape skoro nezakresleny a pruvodci ignorovany, je budhisticky klaster. Jako jeden z mala bez vstupneho, neni nacancany pro turisty, ale pouzivany predevsim mistnimi. Fotky ...

... and there is no 24 hour malls... so we look up a 24 hour massage parlor and head there for a much needed body massage.  I have come to realize that nothing sounds sketchier than the phrase "24 hour massage parlor" in China.  But we try it anyway.  We walk in and the receptionist was asleep on a cot in front of the door.  He briefly awakes to say "massage?" and point in an obscure direction.  We buy 2 full body massage and are instantly given outfits that are made from the same thin ...

... describe the room at Hua Shan. Let's just say the hot water remained yellow after running it for 30 minutes, but apparently I should've been grateful to be the only one in the hotel to have hot water. I wasn't touching the yellow water, so I had a cold shower instead. I won't delve into more disgusting details about the room, but I'd be happy to vent (I mean discuss) later! Hua Shan is often climbed at night for the view of the sunrise from the East Peak. Though I was well ...

... the Datong Park and the Ertong Park and for those wishing to do the same when you get to Datong, forget it mate. Both are identical and both are overgrown with weeds and not maintained at all. Like most Chinese city parks they have roller coasters and dodgem cars and other amusements for children and child like grownups people like me but the good thing about Ertong Park is that ...

... the pagoda, the relaxing taxi ride or the beautiful blue sky above but during the day I finally formed a plan for the rest of my holidays. From Datong City I will head further north in to Inner Mongolia to the city of Hohhot and from there I plan to slowly travel east until I hit the North Korean border. There are several places I want to visit and in between these ...

... were mainly constructed in the period between 460-525 AD during the Northern Wei dynasty. They are an outstanding example of the Chinese stone carvings from the 5th and 6th centuries. All together the site is composed of 252 grottoes with more than 51,000 Buddha statues and statuettes. In 2001, the Yungang Grottoes were made a UNESCO ...

... In Qing Dynasty (18th century) this place had been restored and new roof structures were built over some of the caves. Even though some of the older caves had collapsed ceilings exposing the huge buddha images to weather, a few others had colorful ...