My Month Long Travels Part 6

  The next day I went to the Longmen Grottoes. A grotto, for those who have not come into contact with one, is just a small cave that usually has something inside, like carvings, drawings, etc. The school I attended in the United States has the Lourdes Grotto in a wooded area that is for those in the Catholic Faith for inside it has a statues of someone important to the church (Mary the Mother of Christ I think, I do not really know because I have not actually looked). Grottoes are not reserved for one religion and can have nothing to do with religions. The Grottoes in Luoyang are Buddhist grottoes so they do serve a religious purpose. Buddhist monk started to carve caves into the side of a hill and put carvings of those important to the buddhist belief inside. Others would be able to come to the grottoes and show their respect and faith. The Longmen Grottoes are special for their age and the amount of them carved into the side of the hill.
  I arrived early that morning and headed into the Grottoes. Unfortunately since it was the off season the entrance that I was planning on entering was closed. I got off the bus and started looking at the map on my phone for another entrance. A lady came up to me pointing and speaking in Mandarin. I did not know what she was saying but was pretty sure she was trying to get me to pay something to take me to another entrance. I do not like when people try to get money from me so I completely ignoring her. She left me alone and another man that spoke English approached me. I was ready to ignore him as well however he proceed to tell me that the Grottos provided a free service via electric bus to another ticket location and entrance.
  The Grottoes are located in a large hill beside a river, which you can see below.

  The gate.

  Here is a picture of the actual grottoes. Each dark hole that you see is a grotto, inside you will find a statue (if time has not destroyed it) and decorated walls. The can be carved a few inches or several yards into the stone, most were several inches. In the following pictures you can see the detail that was put into the carvings. Paints were also added but have washed away with time. 

  The many little sitting men in the picture above impressed me. Someone sat, or stood, there to carve exactly the same image again and again over the wall. That takes patience.

  This was inside a grottoes that was about the side of a small bedroom (enough for a bed, nightstand and wardrobe). You can see the painting on the walls. If you look closely on either wall you can see what looks like horizontal lines. Those are the tiny sitting men from the previous picture. Below you can see the decoration of the ceiling.

  More small sitting men.

  Below is a huge Buddha. His head is about as tall as my entire body, maybe taller.

  Me in comparison.

  The river from the grottoes side.

  This is what the grottoes look like from across the river, they are high up into the hill so stairs were added for climbing which you can see below. 

  On the other side were a few more grottoes, not nearly as impressive as the first but still interesting.

  There was a Palace on this side of the river that I checked out. It belonged to an important man who was against the Communist Party back in the day. Below are small wooden red blocks that people have hung around the temple in the Palace. While I was there I had an interesting experience. During my entire grotto experience I went through it at about the same pace as a group of older men. We happened to go to the palace at the same time. Throughout I noticed that they glanced at me, but no more then the normal 'oh look there is a white person' stares that I normally get. When I was exiting a building in the palace one of the older men approached me and held up his phone, he could not speak English but I understood that he wanted a picture with me. I am use to people wanting to take a picture with me but not usually old men, which can be viewed with some strangeness. However, I understood it was harmless and agreed to let him take a picture with me. He handed his phone to his buddy and I got a picture with an old man (actually he got a picture with a young lady since I did not ask for the picture). His buddy then wanted a picture so they traded placed and I got another picture taken of myself. They then wanted to ask me a few questions which they did with the assistance of a younger man who know passable English. I do not know if that young man and his friend were with them or not. It was a bit of a weird experience. If that would have happened in America I would have been a little freaked out.

 After the grottoes I had enough time to go check out a temple so I hopped on a bus.

  The person you see in the picture above is a little girl. She got on the bus with her mother holding a giant stuffed animal and proceed to sing the alphabet. It was super cute and put me in a happy mood. After a few minute she fell asleep and had trouble waking up when it was their stop. 

  Below is a rather large tourist shopping area. A benefit of traveling during the off season is that many are closed so you are not bombarded with people wanting to sell you things. What people mostly bought were incense sticks which they would light in the temple as a sign of respect.

This is the entrance to White Horse Temple compound area.

  Here is the actual entrance to the White HorseTemple.

  

  Inside this door is a buddha statues but it is disrespectful to take pictures. In many temples the have people standing there telling you not to take pictures. In the metal pot you can see an incense stick still burning.

 Outside of the actual temple they have built temples modeled off other countries versions of Buddhist Temples as a show of peace and good well between themselves and the nation. They had a Thai Temple, Indian Temple, and a few others.

  In this picture I am waiting in line at the train station and I only took this picture because I almost missed my train and wanted to celebrate the fact that I did not. I was heading to Qingdao located along the coast.