We arrived really early in the morning to Luoyang after experiencing the best overnight sleeper train ever. We had to get a train to Zhengzhou (Y178-10 hours) and then a short train journey to Luoyang (Y20-2 hours). We slept on the first train with the set up of bunks pretty similar to the ones in India but there were very big differences in everything else. The cabins were all heated, clean and very quiet. They provided us with a duvet and a pillow and the lights went off at 10pm. That is luxury when you've travelled India. After the Chinese kids practicing their English with Danny, we slept like babies until the cabin attendant woke us up ¨Oh ye that's another thing they do-wake you up just before you need to get up.
We stayed at Mingyang Hotel (Y100 per night) for 2 nights and all of a sudden it got real cold in Luoyang so we always wrapped up in layers. With us having a few heavy days, we decided to sleep until the afternoon, just enough time to see the Longman Caves. We got a local bus to the caves, which took about 30 mins and paid our heavy entrance fee (Y120 each). We always try to get in for students with Danny's old student card and my driving license but it never works because we're not Chinese students-DAMN!! The Longman caves is a world heritage sight and with us already visited the Ajanta Caves in India, it had a lot to live up to. There were so many little caves with Buddha statues inside, many of them with heads missing. Someone destroyed them years ago and apparently some of them are in museums across the world. For me it was not as impressive as the Ajanta caves, partly because this had such a touristy feel to it, with well paved steps and paths but the Ajanta caves had much more of a natural feel to it. The Longman caves however were very well preserved. There was a route around, which took us to a temple and a tomb of some famous guy.
The next morning was dedicated to see the Shaolin Temple, where the art of Shaolin boxing was invented. We got another local bus (Y20 each-2 hours) to the temple and paid another hefty entrance fee (Y100). The original temple was burnt down in 1928 by some crazy emperor so they have done there best by re-creating it from past photographs. The majority of temples were rebuilt in 1985 with some only being built a few years ago so it all did look kind of new. The temple for me was nothing special compared to the other temples we have seen but at least we can say we have seen it. The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at the Pagodas in the forrest and a Kung Fu demonstration. The demonstration itself made it worth while with each person representing a different skill in the art. Some used weapons, some represented animal styled kungfu and some demonstrated there inner strength by breaking things. We were allowed to take a pic with the Kung Fu warriors after so we could feel part of the crew for a short while.
Luoyang Photo Link:
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