It is 67 meters tall and 30 meters in diameter. The Pagoda appears as a five-storey structure, but in fact it has a total of nine stories with four hidden inside. It was built with about 54 different kinds of brackets, and jointed without any nails or rivets. It is an octagon and is in pretty good shape despite its long exposure to the elements, violent earthquakes and a lightning strike.
If you look closely you see black dots around the top.....they are 100's of birds......the chirping was quite loud.
This pagoda was built for the Buddha Sakyamuni who was so charitable and good to the people that they sometimes depicted him as a woman as seen below. He was their their version of Mother Theresa.
Inside the pagoda there are many statues of this famous teacher surrounded by his protectors called the guardians and also his students and benefactors.
Then we drove to the Hanging Monastery which stands at the foot of Mt. Hengshan, 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of Hunyuan County, and 65 kilometers (40 miles) from downtown Datong City. Since it hangs on the west cliff of Jinxia Gorge more than 50 meters above the ground, it is called the Hanging Monastery.
Built in 491, it has survived more than 1400 years and and was renovated in the Ming Dynasty about 600 years ago. It is located in a deep gorge between 2 mountains which flooded every year so had to be built into the side of the mountain above the ground. Today there is a Dam which controls the water flow.
The Hanging Monastery is unique because it includes the 3 main religions of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Inside the monastery, the sculptures of Sakyamuni, Confucius and Laotzu appear together, which is unusual. It is a long steep climb and very scary when you look down.
The Monastery at night is stunning.
Most of the tourists at this attraction were Chinese and we were the only non Chinese visitors. In fact when we went to the nearest town for lunch everyone stopped and looked up when we walked in. They are all friendly and try to talk to us to practice their English and it shows how similar we all are. However one thing that is not the same is the Chinese bathrooms .....which have no toilet. You have to hover over a drain in the floor. The first time was tough but as you can see below from my thumbs up sign .....I am getting better.
After lunch we drove back to Datong to drop off our local guide and then continued on towards Beijing. Since the 2008 Olympics the highway system is very impressive .....but like most large cities anywhere in the world the traffic is formidable.
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