Longmen Grottoes (龙门石窟)

We arrived in Luoyang at 6:52 am Sunday morning, ate at the KFC in front of the train station and took a cab ride to the Longmen Grottoes (Longmen Shiku). The one-hour cab ride cost us 60 kuai (5 kuai flag-down rate).

From Wikipedia: "The Longmen Grottoes (龍門石窟/ 龙门石窟, lóngmén shíkū; lit. Dragon's Gate Grottoes) or Longmen Caves are located 12 km south of present day Luòyáng in Hénán province, China. The grottoes, which overwhelmingly depict Buddhist subjects, are densely dotted along the two mountains: Xiangshan (to the east) and Longmenshan (to the west). The Yi River flows northward between them. For this reason, the area used to be called Yique (The Gate of the Yi River). From north to south, the distance covered by grottoes is about one km. Along with the Mogao Caves and Yungang Grottoes, the Longmen Grottoes are one of the three most famous ancient sculptural sites in China. There are over 2100 niches, more than 100,000 statues, some 40 pagodas and 3600 tablets and steles in the caves of Guyang, Binyang and Lianhua."

The entrance of the site is about a kilometre from the parking area (or what feels like a kilometre walk). The bus number 53, 60, 80 and 81 stops are located in the parking area along with the shops selling souvenir goods. There are battery-operated cars for for 4 kuai that stops at the ticket booth and the east side fo the Longmen Bridge.



Tickets cost 120 RMB. This includes the entrance to the Caves on the East and West Hill, Xiangshan Temple and Bai Garden. The ticket booth is near the main gate (extension of the Longmen Bridge). I was so fascinated by the Longmen Bridge so I took a lot of pictures!



The sculptures are breathtaking, specially the massive sculptures of the Lu She Na Buddha and the Boddhisatvas.



We stayed at the grottoes for five hours - we didn't check out the Caves on the East Hill and the Xiangshan Temple on east bank of the Yi River because were tired but we did a quick tour of the Bai Garden.


By 5 pm, Liza and I ran out of things to do (or maybe because we have tired ourselves looking for a place to eat earlier). We stayed at the city square in Renmin Lu and played cards for half an hour before we decided to go to the airport.

Luoyang airport is still under construction, we were the only people at the airport aside from the two persons who are playing badminton inside the waiting area (we assumed they work there) - I thought we got lost again (there weren't even security guards!). People came trickling in at around 8 pm (check-in time). The plane took off early so we arrived in Beijing twenty minutes ahead of schedule.