Dengfeng: Home of the Shaolin Masters

The day started with an early rise. It was another travel day and we were due on our bus at 6:50am. It was a long bus ride to Dengfeng, better known locally as Shaolin, but luckily after an early rise and relatively late night I sleep for most of the journey, which is my favourite way to travel; unconscious. I awake as we arrive at around 2pm at our new hostel and after meeting Kathy, our new guide, and getting our bags in the room, we have lunch.

We are eating at the hostel, Shaolin is in the mountains and we are staying in a relatively small village so there are limited options. I have mushroom noodles with a side of beef and spring onions. After our time here Tom and I have learnt that even if they say it’s a sharing meal it is better to just order for yourself. After our lunch it’s time for another mandarin lesson. This one is less focused on specific words and works on helpful phrases, I struggle and Kathy keeps rubbing out the writing on the board before I have had a chance to really take it in.

After understanding roughly 10% of our lesson we are heading off to a Kung Fu school. We passed three of the biggest schools on the bus, each housing, teaching and training thousands of students at a time. The largest of all of them even has its own museum and hotel attached to one of its two school sites. The one we are visiting isn’t as large as these though. As far as I can tell the one we are visiting has one trainer and his wife housing and training roughly a dozen students, ranging in age from 6-years-old to late teens.

We sit and watch an impressive display put on by the students involving various moves including a blow gun demonstration, a one-hit bottle smash, and various kicking, punching and weapon routines. After which we have a go at a few of the routines and the blow gun. I am the best with the blow gun by far although my routines leave a lot to be desired, apparently I have a habit of sticking my arse out for certain poses. Not the first time I’ve been told this!

After the show we head back to the hostel to shower and chill. After an early start I am pretty tired so decide to spend the evening chilling in my room watching shows on my phone. The WiFi here, like many of the places we have been, is pretty shit, so I use my data. Then the unthinkable happens only two weeks in and I have already used all my data! This is gonna be a pain, from my googling it seems it is best to buy a SIM before getting into mainland China as all the Chinese SIM’s are blocked but, oh well, I was ready for an early night tonight anyway!

After a good night’s sleep we are up and heading to the Shaolin Temple, one of the few temples that is open to tourists while still being a fully functioning temple. The monks here train in Kung Fu and, after walking around the impressive temple, we watch another Kung Fu demonstration – this one by masters. It is impressive; yesterdays was as well, but this one really demonstrates the year’s of practice these guys have put in. Although I have to say both demonstrations could up the production value – both occurring on dirty floors with a guy with a phone being the DJ and multiple times the order of events being openly argued about at the side of the ‘stage’. Nonetheless a fun thing to watch.

Everybody was...

After the forest we walk back to the hostel via a local farm restaurant where I have dumplings; 30 to be exact. The menus are always in Chinese and the guides seem reluctant to go to the effort of translating them as they are so long, so I tend to just point at stuff I recognise, so dumplings it is. After our lunch on the way back to the hostel we spot a very colourful spider which I stop and take some photos of. We get back to the hostel and load our bags in the bus ready; we have another activity in Shaolin but won’t be coming back to our hostel. So once loaded we head to the Longmen Grottoes.

...Kung Fu fighting!
(click on the top right hand icon)

After the show we head to the Pagoda Forest, an area named as such due to the massive amount of, you guessed it, pagodas. Pagodas are monuments to people who you want to honour. The size, positioning and number of rings on a pagoda means different levels of honour achieved; the highest being 7 (well technically 9, but that is reserved for emperors) and men are always odd numbers so no 8. It is an impressive monument/graveyard. Many of these monuments also hold the remains or ashes of the person they are honouring.

On the way to the Grottoes we stop at a local phone shop but as we are in a small village they will only accept Chinese ID and I am left without a SIM for another day – not where I want to be before the night train tonight! Anyway the Longmen Grottoes is a UNESCO site next to the river Yi, with over 2,000 caves – natural and hand made – stretching over a 1km stretch containing over 100,000 carved, stone Buddhas. The river side is beautiful and it is an impressive display of devotion. Although many of the carvings have suffered at the hands of nature, the detail is still very impressive. Along with some giant statues there is also one cave with 10,000 tiny Buddhas carved in the wall. These carvings as well as being a demonstration of faith, they also honour members of the public and government officials, with many caves dedicated to particular people. I get the impression that there is also undertones that these dedications where also statues and wealth symbols as well.

After enjoying a walk along the river and the many, many statues, we are reunited with our bags in the bus and are on our way to the station. Saying goodbye to Kathy at the security, which although is no longer a surprise still seems excessive, we are once again left with an hour or so before we board our train. This is the night train to Beijing and, once on board, we realise how bad it’s gonna be. This country is built for people that are small. To make things worse, Tom and I are on top bunks, which are cramped as it is. So I’ve got a feeling tonight won’t be a peaceful sleep, but fingers crossed, maybe it won’t be as bad as I think it will be.

I love Kung Fu