March 19, 2015

We are just finishing up a great trip to the Shaolin Temple near Dengfeng, China. On our way from Xi’an, we stopped in Luoyang because we wanted to see the Longmen Grottos. Despite Hayden still not feeling great, it was a really neat side-trip. The grottos are actually a mountain where thousands of Buddhas have been carved out of the side of the rock. They were all different sizes with the biggest being over 50 ft tall! We only spent about an hour/hour and a half here and picked up the bus to the Shaolin Temple that afternoon.

Longmen Grotto

Longmen Grotto

It was an interesting trip out to the temple… we took what had to be the oldest bus still running on a 2 hour trip out to the temple. No one spoke English, so when we got there, the driver just stopped on the side of the road to let us out (we were the only ones on the bus going to the temple). We had no idea how to get to the actual temple and when we asked, he just smiled, waved and drove away. We did make it in and went straight to the hostel where we were booked. Unfortunately, it was at the back of the huge temple grounds, so we had to hike all the way through with our packs. Then, of course, it was at the top of a never-ending uphill. The hostel was pretty shabby from the outside, but the room was fine and it was right next door to where the kids in training stay, so it was cool to see them out practicing their kung fu and doing drills at night and in the morning.

Shaolin Temple

Kung Fu Training

Kung Fu Training

Hayden was still not feeling great, so we went right to bed and slept until about 7:00 the next morning. When we did get up and moving, we toured the grounds, went to an awesome kung fu demonstration show, watched the kids of all ages practicing and went on a pretty good hike up into the Song Mountains. The actual temples have actually been rebuilt since their original creation almost 1,500 years ago. With all of the different battles, fighting and rebellions, many of the buildings were demolished and have just been rebuilt in the last 100 years of so. Despite that, it’s pretty cool to think that this is where martial arts was created.

Practicing Kung Fu!

Shaolin Temple

The kung fu show was amazing; they had kids of all ages doing different things. One kid (who looked about Hayden’s age) did some serious flexibility stuff. Another guy broke a metal bar over his head…seriously! A third guy (a little older), threw a needle through a pane of glass and popped a balloon that was behind it…crazy!! All of the different age groups are practicing around the grounds, so we got to see quite a bit of training. We watched the weapons classes for a while (Hayden’s favorite), then watched them do some knuckle/fingertip pushups on concrete…ouch.

Lastly, we went to see the Pagoda Forest which is where they bury the monks that have died while there. They each have a pagoda as a memorial, so it was a very cool area to see them all together.

Shaolin Pagoda Forest

Lastly, we saw a sign that said there was a suspension bridge up on the mountain that sounded cool, so we figured we would go check it out. After about an hour of hiking up the mountain, we were still not even close, so with Hayden not feeling great, we decided to turn around and head back.

Thanks to a very nice older lady, we found a bus right away to take us to the next town, Zhengzhou, which was another 2 hour bus ride. After an uneventful trip, we made it to the hotel and are getting ready to head out to Chengdu via a 12 hour high speed train ride tomorrow!