Wednesday 3rd September - day 14
Datong

We get up early so we can go to yungang caves before we catch our afternoon train to xi'an. It's an easy journey and we just catch a bus outside the hostel and change over at the bus terminal. It's 2 yuan on each bus - a fraction of what we paid yesterday! It's the earliest we've been up and out and we see markets in full flow which includes full caucuses of cows hanging in the street and bring butchered on makeshift tables in the road. We are dropped by the second bus right at the caves and make our way around the site. There's a few open courtyards and shrines before we reach the 50 odd caves. The caves were started by the Northern Wei dynasty in AD 453 to atone for their persecution of Buddhism. There's numerous Buddha carvings, statues and paintings. Unfortunately a few of the caves are closed for renovation but there's still loads to see. Cave 5&6 has a wooden facade built onto the front with a carved stone pagoda inside. Cave 5 has a massive seated Buddha with a blue head (no pictures allowed in this cave) and the cave spans around the in a circle, it's decorated from top to bottom and all over the ceilings with carvings and paintings. Is been protected in here from weathering so it's in good condition still. Cave 18 has a huge standing Buddha inside and a window has been cut out so you can see the face from outside the caves. Unfortunately it's covered with scaffolding at the minute. The main Buddha is outside of cave 20 (which normally would have been shielded by a wooden screen) is fantastic. I've taken to walking slightly ahead of yas and the Barnsley guy as his laugh is driving me round the bend.
We spend about 3 hours at the caves and get the bus back again to the hostel to make our 4.30pm train. The Barnsley guy asks which hostel we are staying at in xi'an and I'm praying he's already booked in somewhere. It's and overnight sleeper train - our first experience on a sleeper and it's surprisingly ok. The rooms are about 2-3 metres wide with 6 bunks in, 3 levels high. Were both on middle bunk which is ok as its got more privacy that bottom And we notice people just come and sit on the bottom beds regardless if the occupant is sleeping in them. The only issue is you can't sit up on middle bunk but we spend most of the journey sleeping anyway. Top bunk is even smaller space again so we hope we've got no tickets for them at any point. It's noisy, whiffs of piss foot through the carriage constantly along with the grogging spitting noises but we get a decent sleep.
We've arranged to be picked up by the hostel in the morning as it was free so we have no stress with public transport when we get off too.
We bough some jam earlier on in the day so make jam filled biscuits for dinner, healthy.