Silk Road Expedition, Sept. 9, Day 9 – Luoyang

Personally, I think that I can sum up the two places we visited that particular day rather basically:

Longmen Grottoes – Splendid.

Shaolin Temple – Over- commercialized to the point of pure and utter lunacy.

Unfortunately, that’s what has become of the temple so famous for Shaolin Kung Fu and its fighting monks. I don’t really have any pictures of all the vendors and shops I found literally everywhere, but that’s exactly the point; I don’t have the slightest urge to remember them at all. What I’d rather remember is the impressive Buddhist temple complex.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that there is a monk on his cellphone. 

While this bug had no major religious or cultural significance whatsoever, I still found it utterly amazing nonetheless when I spotted him on one of the staircases in the temple complex. In other words, I think I have rock-bottom standards when classifying things as interesting.

They say if you walk on the lotuses pictured above, you'll have good luck for all your life, but I'm not sure how well it works for Catholics. 

And nearby forest of pagodas, all of which serve as markers of the final resting places of various monks, was also quite the fantastic wonder.

Afterwards, we traveled to the Longmen Grottoes, which were….well, something else, that’s for sure. It’s a vast array of Buddhist shrines carved into two mountains (much like Dunhuang) standing alongside the Yi River near Luoyang. While some were carved during the short-lived Wei Dynasty and other such less-than-memorable kingdoms that arose during periods of civil war in China. The majority though were carved during the mighty Tang Dynasty (one of the greatest, as the Chinese prefer to admit). There were caves of all sizes pocketing the sides of the mountain, everywhere you look, so chocked full of age-old sculptures it just sent shivers down your spine.

Pictured below on the right of the cave wall are "A thousands Buddhas" - a popular theme in Buddhist art that symbolizes the many lives that Buddha experienced before he achieved enlightenment.

There were also several pools of carp…which for some reason I found almost as interesting as the caves. Why these brightly-colored fish never cease to amaze me, I have yet to figure out. 

Most impressive of course out of them all was the magnificent sight we beheld at the very end of the tour when we saw the largest statues in the whole grotto, still there after over a thousand years. 

Simply MAGNIFICENT! Need I even attempt to describe their beauty?