Shanxi Province Travel Guide

Arriving by train, there's a tourist info centre next to the station. You can see the hanging Temple & Yungang grottoes in one day, so we took the night train there, arrived by morning, saw the 2 sites and left by train at nightfall.
The hanging temple left the biggest impression on me. You take quite the climb on stairs embedded in a mountain wall, to reach the wooden temple construction built into the mountain. From thre you have a very nice view of the valley, and can see the statues with Taoist, Buddhist and Confucianist influences. Makes you ponder on why Western religions have a hard time co-existing.

In every guide you'll read that Pingyao is one of the best preserved ancient cities in China. Inside the wall the city is really cute with his narrow streets and small shops where you can bargain everything. You can appreciate the ancient houses and the wall with his four towers but walking in it could also give you the impression of a jewel made just for tourists. Obviously people try to charge you for eveything, but this is quite normal in China. Anyway I really enjoyed the familiar atmosphear even though outside the wall Pingayo is as chaotic and polluted as many other cities. 

This is a really beautiful place. It's a very small village about an hour from Lishi in Shanxi province. Everyone there has the surname Li (Lijiashan - directly translates to Li family hill) and very friendly. Staying at one of the houses there was interesting, as all houses there are built into the mountains. When we were leaving, Mr. Li (ha) took us to a completely  frozen spring which formed an ice curtain along the entire wall, it was stunning.