After 4 nights of patiently waiting in Datong, which we actually grew to like, we were at the doors of the PSB with our passports in our hands waiting and praying that we would get a visa extension. We met the same lady who had told us on Monday (and again on Wednesday when we went back just to make sure) to come back on Friday when the man who deals with foreign passports would be in. Of course, this same man was not working today but thankfully the lady took it upon herself to sort us out, thank god. Out came the procedures manual and she sat down with us to get it all sorted and eventually after 2 hours we had our visa extension.

Dantong, as i said earlier, is a nice city. It was cleaner and fresher than many of the other cities we had been to and we took in some brilliant sights while we were there. We went to the Yungang Caves, the earliest buddhist carvings in China, very good and highly detailed, and the Hanging Monastery, a monastery built precariously into the side of a cliff, great photos. Aside from that we did our usual walks around the city, nothing too exciting.

Yesterday we caught what was supposed to be a 4.5 hour bus ride to Beijing. This journey turned out to be a 8.5 journey, 2 hours of which we moved about 10 feet when we got caught in a traffic jam coming into the city. And now we are in Beijing, the capital of China. It's going to be a busy few days as we run around the sights, all to be done before we get the train to Mongolia on Tuesday. So much to see, so little time.