I got the frist email from one year ago almost from guest, and preparing nearly one year to find out the itineray, changed itinerary many times and booked the hotel in the rural area for the guests. Because of this is neary 11 days trip which covered main highligths in Shanxi and Henan. Acutally everything is going well and the trip is quite impressive for guests and for me.
First stop at Datong, guests rent the car from Beijing airport to Datong, due to no train arrive in Datong on time for this trip after they arrived in Beijing. It is possible to pick you up at Beijing with our private taxi, VW car and Buick GL8.
Meet the guests at Datong Pipa Hotel which is loated in the pedestrian street at 08:00, the taxi can not get in, you have to call the front desk and ask the staff to get you to their hotel. I walked to the hotel and meet the guests at hotel lobby. then take the privat car with our driver Mr Feng to Yungang Grottoes.
Before meeting the guests, we have a breakast at the restaurant nearby the Datong Drum Tower. Which is very busy and famous for the Datong Steamed Dumpling (Shaomai), the restaurant named Longjuxian. You can not miss it, you also can find the other restaurants around the drum tower, like the Datong Flying Noodles, and you can find it in Pingyao too.
Spend nearly 2 hours to visit the Yungang Grottoes from Cave 1 to Cave 20, we drove to the city center and just pass the Datong Antique Market, you know this market is not coming everyday, and we have a plenty time in Datong, so I asked the guests: would you like to see this market, they said yes. so Our driver drop off us at the entrance and he would like to visit it too, because of his part time job is selling and buying the antique.
Spend nearly 1 hour, we start our lunch time, we sent them at the resaturant we had lunch and we walked cross the street to have a Datong Noodles.
Next sight stop at Datong Drum Tower, it is quite strange that you have to buy the tickets of Drum Tower at the Chunyang Palace ticket office. The stairs are very steep, you must be very carefull and use the hand rails all times. you can have a view of the south gate from the top. It is interesting.
The third stop at Huayan Temple which is just opposit at the Antique Market. Only two buildings are old.
The fouth stop at Shanhua Temple which is nearby each other, if you stay nearby the drum tower, you can visit them by walking. even the south gate.
So the fifth stop at Datong City Wall (South gate), it is new, but it is intact, nearly 7.5km, and you can rent the bike to ride on the whole wall. If you have time you should do that, but it is heavy wind and a bit cold, we don’ t do that, just have a walk around the several towers. I recommended the restaurant for the guest to have a dinne. Due to the first day with guests, I am not familiar with guests requirements much about food, so just help them order the food then I walked away to find our dinner on ourself.
This is the first day trip of 11 days trip at Datong, I will write the next days tirp and upload the pictures I took during the trip.
Thanks for your time to read my writing.
Shanxi Red Plum Tour Service 