Between Temples, Shops and Chinese

After enjoying Datong we went to Wutai Shan - a holy mountain area with many Buddhist temples (actually Wutai Shan means Wutai mountain and describes the area around Taihuai which is the little village in the valley). Our first coach ride was quite pleasant and we met two other Germans - Lara and Ben - with whom we explored the Wutai mountains and temples during the next couple of days.

Buddhist monk on his pilgrimage to Wutai Shan

We climbed the highest peak, one of the five holy mountains of buddhism. It was quite exausting to climb up the donkey trail but  the view was worth it.  Also, compared to the pilgrims who got up there by bodylength, our hardship was really nothing (same held true for the long way down on the steep stairway that scared something out of one of us ;)). We went to many other temples and it was  fascinating to acutally see the Buddhist religion in practice here in China.
 

Friendly monk close to his destination

One of the temples was in a less accessible area and as a result there were only very few other people there and we had quite a peaceful time just sitting in the sun, enjoying the view, the nature's sounds and the distant insences of the pilgrims  offerings - that was something different for a change...

Jens, Anna, Lara, Ben and Chinese in one of the many photo shootings in crowded places...

Lara, Ben, Anna and Jens and no Chinese in a non-crowded place

 From Wutai Shan we took the bus to Tàiyuán, changed the bus station and went to Píngyáo,a little historic town surrounded by city walls. We met quite a number of German speaking fellow travellers and grouped up for eating, drinking and going on a trip to Zhangbi Underground Castle. We had a guide there who showed us around the overground temples, the underground defense tunnels (that were never put to their assigned use) and the overground little farmers village - all of them quite interesting and the tunnels sometimes a bit small for us... We also explored Pingyao itself, which is very touristy with lots of restaurants, shops and street food. We tried all the local specialties, some of which were rather interesting while others were really tasty and very few gave us shivers.

Sabine, Dominic, Anna, Cristina, Ben, Tim, Lara and Jens in the underground castle

 Tomorrow we'll be off to Kaifeng in our first nighttrain.