Howard Johnson Plaza Datong

... as the other countries I had visited. I had a feeling China was going to be very tough. Plus I was exhausted after Nepal. Completely physically and mentally drained.<br><br>As soon as I got off the train, I booked my onward journey ticket&#8230; a sleeper train to Pingyao the following night&#8230; and a bus tour to the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Monastery for the following day.<br><br>I checked into a hotel near the train station&#8230; which in ...

... mountainous. It's a miracle that the farmers grow anything at all. As we pulled into the city, the bus bounced and shock on the rough, rocky right road. Several disused textile factories, coal processing plants, grimy canals, and useless brick walls with shards of glass on the top lined our approach. Lu Wei's father, a taxi cab driver, picked us up and by the time I got my bag up to his family's seventh story apartment I was ready for a nap. I awoke to the sounds of a typical ...

... photographers. Built on the side of a cliff supported by various poles, you can help wondering how can this temple still standing (and how safe it is). it is an inactive temple, and the only visitors are just curios tourists (like myself). Walking inside the temple was an adventure itself and one could wonder, the number of fall from the temple (as well as how was this temple raised and the length of trouble for devoit ...

... pro priste. Hygiena v ledove vode nic moc :) Po obcerstveni jsme konecne vyrazili do mesta. Mesto samo o sobe nic moc, krome stareho centra, ktere nema chybu je to spinava dira. Ale stred mesta je uzasny, hutongy, i kdyz vetsinou v dezolatnim stavu. Mistni maji mirne cikanskou naturu, takze se neobtezovali zbytecnostmi jako voda a odpad, ackoliv na ulici site jsou. Ovsem elektrinu ma zavedenou kazdy a na strese satelit jako krava. Na zachod se chodi na verejne, ktere jsou na ...

... and how awful they are.  Picture really hard school bus seats turned toward each other so that you would be facing the person across from you.  Your knees hit their knees; I am not tall and neither are most Chinese people and our knees touch.  So just take a second to picture Willie in this situation!  People are standing in the aisles because they over fill the hard seat cars.  Smoking is allowed so the people across from you who are intertwined in your legs are smoking and blowing it in ...

... guy rudely ordered me to move for him and I obliged. I then sat with my foot resting on my knee, which he rudely ordered me to put down. At this point, I was fed up so I just ignored him. He repeated a few more times before he took my foot and slammed it to the ground. I put my foot back up a few times and he kept slamming it to the ground until he threatened me by pushing me in the shoulders. Since he was much bigger than me, I swore at him in English and abandoned my ...

... Chinese that I know really talk about Tibet at all. Nothing to do with politics, the fact is they just don't. It is like most of them have never heard of the place before. Anyhow, where was I? Oh yeah, my boring, watery and expensive Yangzhou Fried Rice. I seriously don't know why I bother ordering it anymore as most of the time it is the same and when I look at my rice filled ...

... an old world sailing ship than a Pagoda. It is a nine storey pagoda and not one nail was used during its construction. Also according to the LP it has survived seven major earthquakes. If only all buildings were built this tough the world would be a much safer place. Maybe if Xuankong Si was built the same way it would probably have caused Heng Shan to crumble in its ...

... Beers N Noodles toya.....shane _______________________________________ __________________ The soundtrack to this entry was by Mr Bruce Springsteen The album was his ultimate album 'Blues' _______________________________________ ___________________ Yungang Shiku Caves/Grottoes: The Yungang Grottoes are ancient Buddhist temple grottoes near ...

... which I am familiar with. In the heat of summer people hang out in the shade on the wide boulevards. Taiyuan has some of the widest streets in China. We stayed in a nice hotel and explored local foods, then headed north to Datong. Datong was a ...