Datong, Where the Buddhas Face the Steppe

Datong spent centuries as a frontier town — first the capital of the Northern Wei, later a Ming garrison staring north at the steppe — and its treasures are correspondingly monumental. The Yungang Grottoes, cut from the 460s onward into sandstone west of the city, hold more than 51,000 statues across 45 caves; the colossal seated Buddhas of caves 16 to 20 still show the Central Asian modelling that travelled the Silk Road, and the densely carved, painted interiors of caves 6 and 12 are among the most extraordinary rooms in China.

Some sixty-five kilometres southeast, the Hanging Monastery clings to a cliff in the Hengshan gorge on wooden beams sunk into the rock, a 1,500-year-old shrine that houses Buddha, Laozi and Confucius under one improbable roof. In town, the Huayan and Shanhua monasteries preserve Liao and Jin timber halls with their original clay bodhisattvas, and the Nine Dragon Screen glazes an entire Ming wall in colour. The rebuilt city walls now enclose the old grid, floodlit and walkable after dark. An hour south, the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda of 1056 rises five storeys outside and nine levels inside, traditionally said to use no nails. North of the city, the rammed-earth ramparts of the Ming Great Wall run along the Inner Mongolian border, with border forts such as Deshengbao still standing among the fields.

Shanxi eats well and cheaply: knife-shaved noodles flicked straight into the pot, aged black vinegar on everything, sticky yellow millet cake, and hotpot with local lamb. Winters are cold and bright at a thousand metres; autumn is the sweet spot. Datong makes a natural stop between Beijing and Pingyao on a northern loop through China.