Review of Datong Great Wall and Inner City Attractions

Datong Inner City Tourist Attractions

Datong City Wall

Biking on Datong’s Great Wall.

The Datong City Wall  encloses the original city of Datong. It is quite spectacular to see. This wall is not the original wall, it is a replica which is why it looks relatively new. Still impressive to look at and be on top of! Getting onto the wall is free, you just have to show your ID (passports are fine). At two of the gates you can rent bikes for 60 Yuan per hour and you can return the bike at the other bike stop if you don’t want to ride the whole wall. From what we could interpret, you can finish the wall in an hour. We paid for the hour but it took us two so we just paid the extra hour when returning the bike so don’t worry about going over on time. We stopped a lot to admire views and take pictures and just overall messing around having fun. As you can see in the photo below, the wall is really wide, some parts are being restored and my daughter taking off on the bike when I got off to take pictures of the city below.

After the wall you can continue to walk around and there are plenty of things to see like Temples. All the ones we walked into while looking for the “tourist attractions” were free.

9 Dragon Screen

Largest 9 Dragon Screen in China.

9 Dragon Screen for all the hype it was, in my opinion, underwhelming. While the size of this wall and the story behind it is interesting the space they had it in was bleh at best. The cost to enter was 10 yuan per person. I thought it was worth it just for being able to see something that old in relatively good shape. Despite the total destruction of the palace it was part of part. There’s even a mini moat in front of the wall although it’s dry and unassuming. Over 600 years old and surviving a sacking or two this palace wall remnant is not in pristine condition (like in the images in the post cards they sell) but it still looks really awesome, it’s reported to be the largest of only 3 such walls in China.  There is a gift shop in which the attendees were a bit aggressive, sticking things in your hands for you to see, if you didn’t want it they’d just yank it back.

Walking/wandering around we passed many interesting places, a coffee shop (with an English menu) sites still under construction/renovation. Then we get to a plaza where young people were skateboarding and hanging out. This was right in front of the Huayan Monastery.

Huayan Monastery

Entry fee was 65 Yuan. This place is huge! Lots to see.we took an hour and a half and still didn’t see everything. Almost though. They are pretty diligent in closing on time at 18:30. There is a pagoda you can go all the way to the top and there’s a basement you can go down too. To help preserve the inside, you are required to were slip on covers over your shoes. Also, the stairs are pretty steep and narrow, so mind your shins.

Close up of the pagoda in Huayan Monastery

Slip ons for your shoes to help preserve the flooring in the pagoda

I wished I had more time in this monastery, I really like the “feel” and would really have like to see everything. Well worth the entrance fee! There are monks walking around, some even join the tour groups and add to the stories (I’m guessing as they do a lot of talking). So monks (not just in this monastery) will actually move to a more favorable spot for you to include them in your shot. I found that really awesome! The first few times I was hesitant as I thought maybe it was a gimmick and they’d come ask for a “tip”, but that never happened! It seemed they genuinely wanted to help you get a “better” shot.

Walking around at night was something else! Although really dark in many places, we didn’t feel threatened but didn’t want to leave things to chance either, we made our back to the hotel. Some places only had the lights from the buildings on top of the wall or car headlights.

The Datong Great Wall at night.

NOTE: Although I took a lot of time photographing things, I could have taken a lot more. There’s just so many things to see and make images of!

For more photos taken in and around Datong, check out my Flickr Album.

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