One of my favourite blogs over the past months is Walking the Wall, a classy, entertaining and fascinating travelogue posted by a couple hiking the Great Wall of China.
They’ve posted great photos of astonishing works done in the name of Buddha. I enjoyed the caves of Dunhuang and Datong so much myself back in the late 1990s that I thought I’d pass this on.
Of all the Buddhist grottoes we’ve visited – Dunhuang, Matisi, Jintasi and Shikong – we’d have to say we had the most fun at Yungang Grottoes near Datong. Not that the works were as gorgeous and beautifully preserved as at Dunhuang; they weren’t. Nor were the grottoes set against a spectacular mountain backdrop like those at Matisi and Jintasi, or a private, intimate experience like we had at Shikong.
What was so enjoyable about Yungang, and what we hadn’t experienced before, was that we were able to wander about the caves more or less unrestricted. We weren’t required to hire a guide, we could linger as long as we liked, and we could take photographs wherever we wanted.
Rick McCharles 