We hadn’t originally planned to visit these grottoes – Yungang Grottoes – not because they weren’t interesting, but because we’d initially planned to see the grottoes in Luoyang: the Longmen Grottoes. However, by booking our trip to go to the Hanging Temple, we unintentionally arrived at the caves’ entrance …

It seemed wrong to not make the most of being there when we had the chance. So, whilst Fábio took notes on the last few days for our blog, Noah and I went for a walk around the grottoes.

Our visit to Yungang Grottoes

We began our walk on a pathway that was flanked on both sides by columns in the shape of elephants.

Anna (a French friend girl) and Maura and Giuseppe (an Italian couple), three of the nicest people we’ve met on our trip around China, joined us for this excursion.

Our walk took us along a bridge which led to different temples and up to a small tower in the middle of one of the courtyards.

A group of monks was holding a communal prayer at the last temple (or altar) we saw before entering the site of the grottoes.

Caves 1 and 2 are far apart but connected by a subterranean walkway through the rock. We were impressed by the size of the Buddha statues that were carved into the rock. Noah had been waiting for this (I’d told him that we were going to see some statues stuck in rock) and he wasn’t disappointed. The surprised look on his face was something else! 🙂

There are two buildings, one of which is a sort of Chinese pagoda, that serve as entrances to other large caves:

The Cave number 5, of the Great Buddha

Buddha Cave number 7.

The last large caves we saw that contained huge statues were the Tan Yao caves, although initially Anna and I didn’t know how big they actually were until we were close enough to fully appreciate their magnitude 🙂

Afterwards we went to the museum where Noah, once again, was able to play for a while with a Chinese boy. This almost always happened throughout our entire trip across China!

And finally, we started our walk back to the main entrance which took us close to the caves, but instead we took a different route which led us to a traditional street market where we were able to watch all sorts of desserts being made with almonds and dry fruits from the area.

Fábio and our driver were waiting for us at the entrance, and then, at long last, we headed to the much-anticipated Hanging Temple.