Hengshan (North)

Hengshan is unusual for a Chinese sacred mountain. For some reason it doesn’t get as much attention as any of the other eight mountains. It is unmentioned in the lonely planet and in other travel guides. This is particularly mysterious as it is located right next to the very famous Hanging Temple, to the south of Datong. I was concerned that it would be uninteresting because of this omission, but thankfully I was wrong. Hengshan is in fact very beautiful. The difference between it and the other mountains I’ve been to is that it is quite small and you can’t climb to the peak. Nevertheless, there is a climb involved and there are at least ten beautiful temples built onto the sides of cliffs. Because of its small size I was able to finish the mountain in an hour and a half. Slower people could easily take double that amount of time.

On the way down from Hengshan, the taxi and I encountered a terrible traffic jam. There is a tunnel in the road and today – of all days – road work was being done in the tunnel. Only one lane of traffic was open. Of course, being obnoxious drivers, many people tried to pass the cars waiting by using the opposite lane. This was started by one horrible driver of a black Buick who had sirens and went into the other lane. Since all the cars were stationary going in his direction when he met oncoming traffic, he tried to turn into the correct lane but wasn’t able too. Many other cars followed his example and after fifteen minutes of honking all of these cars had to back up. I was more and more concerned about time. It took about an hour to get back down to the bus station, and I caught a 3:30 bus to Yingxian.