Shanxi

Nowhere in China are there as many ancient wooden buildings as in Shanxi, the province "west of the mountains." A trip to Shanxi takes you to the Buddhist grottoes near Datong, the walled banking city of Pingyao, and the sacred Mount Wutai – through a landscape of loess hills and coal country.

Sights in Shanxi

West of Datong, sculptors in the 5th century carved more than 50,000 Buddha figures into the sandstone cliffs of the Yungang Grottoes, the largest of them nearly 17 meters tall. Nearby, the Hanging Monastery clings to a sheer rock face, supported by slender wooden stilts, and in Yingxian stands a 67-meter-tall wooden pagoda dating from 1056. Pingyao is one of China's best-preserved Ming and Qing dynasty towns: a six-kilometer wall encloses lanes lined with courtyard houses, temples, and the Rishengchang, the country's first draft bank. Around Pingyao, the family compounds of the Qiao and Wang clans testify to the wealth of the Shanxi merchants. Mount Wutai is one of the four sacred mountains of Buddhism, with dozens of monasteries, including wooden halls from the Tang dynasty. Near Wutai, the Nanchan and Foguang Temples are also well worth a visit; their wooden halls from the 8th and 9th centuries are among the oldest surviving wooden buildings in China. Pingyao hosts an international photography festival every year.

Taiyuan and the Landscape

Taiyuan, the capital, is shaped by industry, but it has a significant complex in the Jinci Temple with its Song-dynasty figures. The Yellow River forms the province's western border and plunges, brown-yellow and roaring, into a narrow gorge at Hukou Waterfall. The economy has long been based on coal, but tourism and cultural heritage are growing in importance. In recent years, Datong has undertaken an extensive reconstruction of its old town and city wall.

Food, Getting There, and Best Time to Visit

Shanxi is the home of the noodle: daoxiaomian, noodles shaved with a knife straight into the water, cat's-ear noodles, and oat noodles from the north. Nearly every dish comes with the dark, aged vinegar from Qingxu, and you wash it down with fenjiu, a millet liquor. High-speed trains connect Taiyuan and Datong with Beijing, and Pingyao has its own train station. The best time to visit is between May and October; winters are cold and dry.