After our holy mountain experience, we caught a bus back to Xian where we had pre-booked train tickets (again hard sleepers for the 5 hour journey) to Luoyang.

Arriving in Luoyang we checked in at the Mingyuan Hostel and had a very relaxing evening (partly due to the fact that our legs were so stiff we could hardly walk!).

There is not much to do and see in town, except for the Longmen Caves about 13km away. We had a very nice lay-inn this morning and at around 14:00 took a local bus to the caves, south of the city.

The Longmen Grottoes are one of China’s few surviving masterpieces of Buddhist rock carvings. The site is absolutely huge with dozens of caves - the Ancestor Worshipping Temple definately the highlight of the day. This section was carved between 672 and 675 AD and contains the best works of art with three-dimensional figures and a central 17m-high Buddha.

It is a great day-out, except for the somewhat extortionate entrance fee and all the steps! Usually we don’t really mind steps, but after the Hua Shan experience, we are still a bit wobbly.

We ended the day with a very nice dinner (seated in hanging, swinging chairs) and tomorrow morning we are catching the 08:00 bus to Guoliangcun, an ancient village about 150km away.

If you can’t see the slideshow above click here.