The Yun Gang grottoes (云岗石窟) was definitely a very impressive attraction. One cannot help but marvel at the intricacy of the stone carvings. How many decades it must have took them to carve out all 45 of the caves, statues and carvings!

As usual, a whole bunch of us cannot resist the urge to be fooling around.

Anyhow, Yun Gang Grottoes was one of the more memorable place of the entire trip as well!

9 Dragon Wall (九龙壁) – The biggest 9 Dragon wall in China. Even the one at the Forbidden Palace, Beijing is smaller. This wall was built by the brother of one of the Emperor and because he wanted to be grander than his brother, he built an even bigger wall in Datong.

We then departed Datong and headed for Wu Tai Shan. However, along the way, we made another top at Xuan Kong Si (悬空寺) Temple built on the side of a mountain cliff. It was beautiful.

The temple was shielded from the rain and the wind due to its unique location on the cliff. The way they had built it was also a marvel of its own. A mere 152 metres square, the temple was actually very small. Nonetheless, it was a sight to behold!

Next stop – Wu Tai Shan (五台山) … the trip took around 4 hours. We traveled via mountain routes and the view was really nice. Unfortunately, no camera that I possess can capture the moments that I have seen. Hence, I can only enjoy it myself in my mind and memory. We had dinner in the valle of the mountain and stayed there as well at a Petrochemical Hotel (which was owned by the Petrol Company Sinopec). One of the most interesting and supposedly most expensive dish that we had for dinner was mushrooms. It was some kind of special mushrooms that they grew on the mountain.

After dinner, we adjourned to our hotel and boy did the corridor stink! The place smelled of the toilet because the public toilet on each level was so stinky! Luckily when you close your room door the smell was shut out! That night, we wanted to go in search of a nice place to watch the stars (something that we failed to do at the grasslands) but from our hotel garden, only 3 stars were in sight. We decided not to go further since safety was an issue especially in such a wilderness.

We ended up playing some silly game in the hotel lobby. I think the game is called “King” or whatever you can call it. It’s a rather “bian tai” (??) game. (‘rather’ could be an understatement!) The game goes as follows. Each player would be given a card (could be number, jack, queen or king). The one with the ‘King’ is the King and calls the shot for that round. So the King will suggest an action (activity, forfeit, or whatever you call it) and ask 2 or more of the people to do that action. (That night we limited it to 2 people each round.) Loads of laughter, loads of weird actions, loads of gross stuff as well! The game continued into the night at one of the rooms even after the hotel lobby was close. We are all “lunatics”!

I shan’t say more about the games. “Everyone slept with nightmares that night!”

Night 5’s Hotel (Petrochemical Hotel)