2009 09 19 – Days 85 – near Datong
One of three non-industrial reasons to stop in Datong, the
Hanging Monastery is truly a fantastical sight.
Who would live on a cliff face like this?
Monks it would seem and not only those of a particular type as the Hanging Monastery has Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian elements.
The nearby trickle with pretensions of being a river must become a raging torrent with spring snow melt because some serious concrete channels had been constructed and our guide told us that the Monastery had been washed away a couple of times and rebuilt slightly higher up the cliff face.
Despite the place crawling with tourists, a well thought out one-way loop of a route enabled frustration free touring and appreciation of the vertiginous positioning.
Despite the simple wooden construction and sheer drops beside most walkways, the building felt stable, with a magical quality to the way it clung to the cliff.
Experiencing that stability while walking around it made the location seems slightly less ridiculous than when viewed from the valley floor.
One of the best preserved shrines.
Ceiling art, accompanied by an entirely necessary, but unnecessarily conspicuous smoke detector.
Is this really necessary!? Whether it should be there or not is debatable, but that it should be so conspicuous?
