Shanxi Tours — Temples, Walls & Grottoes

At Yungang Grottoes, 45 caves and tens of thousands of statues carved under the Northern Wei line the cliff, led by the open-air Buddha of Cave 20.

First built in 1056, Huayan Temple in Datong is one of China's largest surviving Liao monastery halls, with towering clay Buddhas and a scripture repository.

Built roughly 1,500 years ago, the Hanging Temple in Datong rests on oak beams and half-hidden anchors set into a Hengshan gorge, its halls stacked in three tiers.

From the base path you can see the braces, pavilions and statues your guide points out, hung far above the rock face that keeps them clear of the summer flood.

Raised in 1056 without nails or glue, the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda stands some 67 metres, the oldest and tallest all-timber pagoda still left anywhere on earth.

From the path you look up at the temple wedged on its Hengshan beams, your guide on how the structure has held in place for close on 1,500 years.

Pingyao's Ming walls ring about 6 km and 72 watchtowers; you walk the street grid below them and read the whole planned old city from a wall section.

Spread across nine ranked courtyards and more than 200 rooms, the Wang Family Compound was built for one merchant clan and keeps its layout intact.

Mount Wutai, one of China's four sacred Buddhist mountains, gathers dozens of temples along its five ridges, the guide pacing a day around the great Manjushri halls.

Wutai Buddhist temples span Tang to Qing rebuilding - the old timber halls and the towering Avalokiteshvara are the stops that hold you longest on the mountain.

Jinci Temple near Taiyuan pairs its Song-dynasty Holy Mother Hall with a spring pool that has fed the grounds for some 1,500 years, its halls ranged around the water.

A Qing merchant stronghold of grey-brick lanes and lantern-lit courtyards, the Qiao Family Compound later stood in as the set for the film Raise the Red Lantern.

Rebuilt in 782, Nanchan Temple holds the oldest surviving timber Buddha hall in China - a small, plain space whose bracket sets still read clearly as Tang.

Foguang Temple keeps a Tang Buddha hall with original murals and clay figures, set on terraced hills above the valley that once carried pilgrims to it.

Over seven days you can revisit the 45 caves, working through the Northern Wei Buddhas and the later painted halls one at a time rather than a rushed single pass.

You look up at the Hanging Temple wedged over the Hengshan gorge, then cross the county for its older Danjing wall and a longer, quieter visit.

Mount Wutai's sacred halls break the long north-south drive, the guide easing between the great Tang and Qing temples set along its five forested ridges.

Near Taiyuan, Jinci Temple pairs its Song Holy Mother Hall with a spring pool that never fails, its grounds among the oldest garden shrines left in China.

You begin where the game begins looking - the Yungang Grottoes' cliff Buddhas and the open Cave 20 figure that shaped so much of its stone statuary.

The Hanging Temple on its wedged Hengshan beams reads straight out of the game's cliffside halls, and the walk-through is timed slow enough to actually photograph it.

You reach the boardwalks above Hukou Waterfall, where the whole Yellow River squeezes into a short, churning fall set between two gorge walls.

Nearby Wave Valley lays bare smooth, wave-shaped sandstone cut by wind and water over long ages, an easy detour stop on the drive west.

You take the upper boardwalks at Hukou Waterfall, the Yellow River funnelled into a short, roaring drop that throws fine spray up into the gorge air.

Yucha Grand Canyon cuts in terraced red and ochre, a detour that breaks the drive and, your guide notes, reads best in the low slant of afternoon light.