The Hanging Monastery was built in year 491 so it’s now more than 1500years old, and still standing tall 75 meters (246 feet) above ground.
The Hanging Temple, also Hanging Monastery or Xuankong Temple is a temple built into a cliff (75 m or 246 ft above the ground) near Mount Heng in Hunyuan County, Datong City, Shanxi province, China. The closest city is Datong, 64.23 kilometers to the northwest. Along with the Yungang Grottoes, the Hanging Temple is one of the main tourist attractions and historical sites in the Datong area. Built more than 1,500 years ago, this temple is notable not only for its location on a sheer precipice but also because it is the only existing temple with the combination of three Chinese traditional religions: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The structure is kept in place with oak crossbeams fitted into holes chiseled into the cliffs. The main supportive structure is hidden inside the bedrock. The monastery is located in the small canyon basin, and the body of the building hangs from the middle of the cliff under the prominent summit, protecting the temple from rain erosion and sunlight. Coupled with the repair of the dynasties, the color tattoo in the temple is relatively well preserved. On December 2010, it was listed in the “Time” magazine as the world's top ten most odd dangerous buildings.
Datong is only a short trip from Beijing, but for some strange reason, is it still one of the most overlooked tourist destinations in all of China.
Hanging Temple
The Hanging Monastery is one of a kind, there’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world.
Not much space, and it´s a loooooong way down.
"壯觀" means "spectacular"
According to legend, construction of the temple was started at the end of the Northern Wei dynasty by only one man, a monk named Liao Ran. Over the next 1,400 years, many repairs and extensions have led to its present-day scale
Entry
Some of the religious statues inside the Monastery
How to Get There: The Hanging Monastery’s is located 65 Km (40.40 Miles) southeast of Datong city. A taxi there and back should cost about 150 – 200 RMB for the whole car, with the driver, waiting for you while you’re inside, the trip takes about one and half hour each way. The cheapest option is to take a local bus from Datong to Hunyuan County. From Hunyuan can you take bus number 8 to The Hanging Monastery. The Hanging Monastery is one of a kind, there’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world.
Ref: Wikipedia & Some other Documents
