Another most excellent day, after a very long night's sleep. We started out by driving 65 km to the Hanging Temple. The way passes through a dessert, with occasional small villages on the roadside. Mrs. Wang continued telling us about life in China and her history. She really is remarkable - very frank and realistic, and with that very patriotic and appreciative of the regime and all it has done for the country.
The Hanging Temple is a wooden structure built in the middle of a sheer cliff. The monks who built it stuck wooden posts into the mountain and erected a whole structure on them and then filled them with Budhas. Avi also continued up more steps into a tunnel shaped like a dragon which leads to a water reservior built under Mao's rule in 1959.
From there we drove on to another city and visited the Wooden Pagoda there - a pagoda built originally as a guard post and then converted to a Budhist temple. Today it is a historical museum.
The next stop was for lunch in a convention center adjacent to a spirits distiller. This time Mrs. Wang and the driver ate with us. Mrs. Wang ordered the food, with an emphasis on vegeterian dishes and local specialities and did very well.
From there we had a 200 km drive to Taiyuan - the provincial capital, which has an airport. It has 5 million inhabitants (Datong has only 3 million), and 59 universities! This city has a lot of heavy industry and no toristic attractions at all.
Now we are in the plan flying to Shanghai. The only other westerner on the plane is an Israeli businessman sitting in the row in front of us...
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