Longmen Grottos

Thursday 17 October 2024

Today was the Longmen, "Dragon's Gate," grottos which were built around 500/600 AD.  They actually got the idea of carved grottos from the Indians, notably the Ajunta and Ellora caves which were carved around 300 BC.  After my cave binge in India earlier this year, 2024 is certainly my 'year of the cave'.

It rained most of the day which was our first wet episode.  Chinese tourists don single-use plastics when it's wet.  Each tourist attraction has a host of sellers plying tourists with umbrellas, plastic rain coats and shoe covers for rainy days.  The western-looking tourists were easily spottable with their gortex jackets ;-).

The west side of the River Yi has the best caves, hewn all over the rock face.  There are over 2000.  

Many of the caves are empty.  They were probably adorned at one stage but the passage of time - erosion, theft and vandalism - emptied them.  It’s particularly noticeable that many of the sculptures are missing their heads/faces. The entrance sign said excessive erosion caused this, but I think not.

There were certainly some really impressive caves.  This is the cave of 1000 Buddhas - the left and right sides walls were adorned with tiny Buddhas. 

The piece de resistance is the Fengxiansi Cave, also known as Grand Losana Buddha Niche.  The Buddha is 17.1 m high, and the sign informed us that the ear was 1.9 m long which is a fun fact.  It is surrounded by four statues on each side and gives the impression of "elegance, solemnity, quietness etc" - quietness was certainly off the menu today due to the crowds, but it was still impressive. 

JC has far more interest in these than I - I am happy to view, take photos and inspect for 10/15 minutes.  JC needs a good half an hour and then a repeat visit with a different camera lens on.  We were one of the few of the 100s of tourists taking photos of the carvings alone.  Most were taking photos of their friends posing this way and that in front of the carved backdrop, plus the women in traditional Chinese garb having photoshoots.  People watching is a hobby in its own right.  Anyway, back to the carvings...

No dabbling allowed.

I was pleased to spot some survey kit.  On the left it looks like a radar to measure the water level, and the instruments on the harness are current meters.

We crossed the river and walked up to the east caves.  They were certainly less impressive than their westerly neighbour but pretty empty which was a bonus.

This is the grotto of the 1000 hands and 1000 eyes.  Not sure I can see the eyes, but hands there are aplenty.

We strolled by the River Yi.  I fancied a coffee and espied a kiosk advertising americanos.  We ordered two.  “Do you want sugar?” the vendor typed into his phone which translated it into English for us.  We shook our heads.  He typed back into his phone “the coffee tastes a bit odd. Sugar is best” so we followed his advice and had sugar.  We watched as he put a dollop of syrup into a mug, a sachet of coffee syrup and cold water.  Doh - we’d forgotten to specify hot!  Fortunately he did us another two so we walked away with hot, syrupy coffee-esque liquid.  It tasted pretty foul (the vendor was right!) but at least it was warm fluid and I managed most of it. 

Next up was Xiangshansi temple.  It was apparently 16th century but it’s been so touched up it was hard to tell where the original bits are.

Most temples have a bell and a drum tower - bell tower shown above on the left.  This was no exception but also had beautiful views across the river despite the haze/smog.

The last section of our ticket price was a visit of White Park which houses the tomb of the 9th Century poet Bai Juyi.  This sign, on a flight of steps, didn't make sense until I checked it in my app and it also translated as 'no sliding' which seemed more like it.

In the evening we headed downtown Luoyang.  We again managed street food although my ‘gluten free veggie’ offering was just rice noodles in broth with some sliced spring onions on top.  Not my most filling meal.  JC fared better with beef noodles.

Taoist temple, the Xi'an mosque and a super speedy train

Wednesday 16 October 2024 

This morning we visited the Temple of Eight Immortals.  It is one of the most important Taoist temples around, on the Taoist pilgrimage route.  It is thought to be built in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and was where one of the last emperors hid during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. 

One of the monks said 'bonjour' to us as we wandered through. Again, we were the only non-Chinese visitors there.  

You can see where people run their hands over the brass text.

On the way to the metro we stopped for street food.  We were learning how to better interpret menus - the symbol for rice was easy, rice noodles we got the hang of.  And with JC being able to confirm in Chinese there was no meat involved we were off.  £1.70 for two.

We popped to the Xi’an mosque.  It’s pretty impressive squeezed inside the back alleys of the Muslim area.  It was founded in 742 CE and extended over various Chinese dynasties. We didn’t have a lot of time but cruised around enjoying the architecture as much as we could - such as the wooden memorial archway and the stone memorial gateway.

I’ve seen quite a few mosques in my time (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in particular) and this looked most unmosque-like.  I couldn’t even see the crescent anywhere.  It really did look like a Chinese temple with its minarets and pavilions, but what would I know?

In the past few days we frequently saw Chinese dressed up in period costume.  It was usually women dressed in geisha-like dresses, black hair wigs and white painted faces.  Everywhere we went we’d see them with various props - flowers, balloons and even plastic swords - and a photographer taking numerous poses of them.  Around the bell tower there were 10s of photographer set ups with tripod, lights and props. Occasionally we saw guys dressed up as ancient warriors. Once they finished their photo shoot they’d pop into the 7-11 for shopping, or catch the metro.  It was so normal to see them wandering around no one looked twice.

More random asides - I found a friend (my future self?) and was fascinated by the noodle section in a shop.

Our train to Luoyang was mid afternoon so we headed for Xi'an North station.  It was HUGE!  I’ve seen many international airports smaller than this.  You arrive and have your luggage scanned to enter.  Then you queue up at gates to depart.  My brain was obviously confused as I kept talking about our plane to Luoyang.  

When you buy train tickets, and some other tickets like tourist attractions, you have to enter your ID number.  Therefore, when you travel, you only need your ID card (e-tickets are so yesterday).  As every traveller but us, it seemed, was Chinese they could use their ID cards to get through the gates.  The only ID we had was our passports (which we carried everywhere) so we had to queue in the ‘special assistance’ lane for every ticket barrier.

Chinese trains, including metros, are very well organised and everything ran on time.  On the metros, as you near a station, a diagram of the escalators appeared on a screen so you could see which way to turn when you stepped onto the platform.  Likewise for this train, there were digital displays on the platform showing exactly where each carriage door would line up. 

On arriving in Luoyang we hopped on the metro (such beautiful tickets - they are plastic and get eaten by the machine for reuse once you've finished your trip) and it was door to door for our hotel.  

Holiday Inn Expresses aren’t plush but they are reliable and, in this case, cheap.  And they did breakfast.  We had another hot pot this evening: this time we had a little hotpot each so JC's lost meat didn't end up swanning around in my pot.

Terracotta Army and a Pagoda Light Show

Tuesday 15 October 2024

The Terracotta Army is part of a large mausoleum estate left by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BCE).  As the first emperor he was progressive in many ways.  He standardised the unit of measurement and currency, but he was also an oppressive tyrant and killed to have his way.  He also seemed strangely obsessed by death and started building himself a huge mausoleum within a decade of his reign starting.

To build the mausoleum he first created a village, populated it and then started construction.  The whole site is massive.  It consists of his burial mound and a palace-worth of items to help him continue to reign in the after life.  So he had actual life size replica courts, stables, armouries, kitchen stores, livestock and even ponds with wildlife to assist him with this.  1.5 km away he built a Terracotta Army to protect his after-life community.  And this is today the main attraction.  However, when he built it, they were very much the side show!  The rest is yet to be unearthed. 

We arrived at the Terracotta Army at 0850 today to find the entrance area heaving, as we’d expected.  We started with educating ourselves (well, me - JC most knows most of this stuff as this is his 2nd visit) in the exhibition centre where you could get up close and personal with many of the treasures.

We then tackled (yes, that's the right word) the pits, of which there are 3.  At JC's advice we did them in reverse order as Pit 1 is the best so we worked up to it. It also got us used to the pushing and shoving which came with the vast number of tourists.  

Pit 3 is the smallest and has a selection of warriors in a meeting-like room.

Pit 2 is still very much a work in progress.  The pits were originally covered in wooden beams which is the striatum we saw.  To date they have unearthed 116 warriors and continue to excavate horses, chariots and more warriors as they go.  Looks to be a painstaking job not only discovering them but then working solving the mystery of which bit belongs to whom.

Pit 1 is the most spectacular due to its size and number of warriors it contains.  They believe there are over 6000 here and they’ve unearthed 2000 of them so far.

The warriors all face east.  The front 3 rows are the archers.  None of the weapons remain as the wood has rotted.  Then there are the horses and carts/coaches followed by the main marching army.

It was heaving.  Each tour group had a guide, flag and about 20 followers all with colour coordinated lanyards or caps.  We learnt to time our dash for a spot by the railings by waiting about 3/4 minutes whilst the guide explained the scene then we’d push our way to the front.  Chinese have no compunction about pushing and shoving so we went with the flow.  I did grump only the once, as a lady was determined to have my spot even though I was still in it. “Let me get out first!” I exclaimed in English (which had no effect except to make me feel a little better).

We spent the whole day at the army.  We took it steadily and managed two coffee stops and a lunch break.  I even found a sweetcorn cob to eat.

At 1600 we went back into pit 1 and there was certainly more elbow room even if I still wasn’t swinging cats.  I was fascinated by the building area.  They really do start with a pile of pottery, which they suspect is all of the same person/horse - but it's painstaking work for sure. They build the bodies first them lie them down to attach the legs and head.  

Everyone has a label.

There are certainly puzzles to complete.  The warriors are not identical - there are various hairstyles and clothing used across the army.

And I took the photo just because I could!  No idea what I wasn't meant to be photographing - I think it was the horse reconstruction zone.  

We started the evening with a free beer in the Belgian bar attached to our hotel.  It was a freebie for staying there but I felt they owed us that and more for keeping us awake so much with their karaoke.  JC had a fancy latte with a tassle.

We headed south back to the Big Wild Goose pagoda to watch a free light show.  We bagged a decent spot an hour before it started.  It started gently with pleasant music and a voice over.  As it was in Chinese it was wasted on us.  It was probably a Chinese tale, but could have been the communist manifesto, but whatever it was it went on a long time and those around me started watching food clips on their phones.  [An aside: food videos are a big thing here and you see loads of people watching cooking programmes, not to mention they are broadcast on screens on the plane and metros.]

After 10 minutes the mood changed and, hurrah, it really got going.  This was more like it - flashing lights, fountains spouting - a fun 25 minutes in all.

We ate in the first place we entered which is a first for us here.  The noodle place served veg dishes so I munched bamboo shoots and spinach while JC had a noodle dish of sorts.  Then we metro’d up to the Bell Tower.  It was beautifully lit up.  I was also very amused by the underground pedestrian roundabout under the tower, built to assist movement of people coming in/out of the metro.  I think over the course of our stay in Xi'an we'd managed to enter and leave every single numbered exit which greatly pleased me.