Dr. Mark Nan Tu

I took a train from Beijing to Zhengzhou. After spending nearly 8 hours on the train, I arrived in Zhengzhou late in the afternoon. I have booked a hotel room from ctrip.com. The Fengleyuan hotel is located in the center of the Zhengzhou city. At the check in counter, I booked a day tour to the longmen grotto for the second day.
I had a light breakfast at the hotel early in the morning and was picked up by the tour bus at 730am. The driver picked up the other 8 tourists along the way. We started off from Zhengzhou at around 8am. Longmen grotto is in Luoyang city and some 80km from Zhengzhou. The longmen grotto is connected by the newly build expressway. It was a smooth ride and we arrived at the Longmen Grotto entrance at about 10am.
The packing lot was 2km from the entrance. I decided to walk to the entrance. The stoned path was clean the well maintained. There was a huge lawn and the grass was trimmed and green. The stoned path was along the river bank of Yi River.
The weather was hot and the temperature was nearly 35C. Our guide was a local Zhengzhou resident and was very familiar with the longmen history. She led us to the scenic spots and told us the historical significance off the grotto.
Longmen grotto is one of the top three grottos in China. The other two are the Yungang Grotto in the Datong, Shanxi province and the Dunghuang Grotto in Dunghuang, Gansu province. The Longmen grotto was first build in the Wei Dynasty and most of the caves were build in Tang dynasty with the next 400 years after the first cave was build.
Among the many caves and the thousands of Buddha images, I was mostly impressed by the three caves. The first was an early cave build in the Wei Dynasty. The Wei carving was quite different than the Tang dynasty. The Buddha figure was very slim.
The second cave as the ten-thousand Buddha cave. This cave was built in the Tang dynasty. Besides the main Buddha figure, there were thousands of small Buddha figures carved on the cave wall. These Buddha figures were small and some of them were as small as 2 cm.
The three caves was the most significant cave with the main Buddha Shakyamuni figure was 17 meters tall. The main Buddha was surrounded by many protective deities. This cave was significantly bigger than the other carvings which showed that these carvings were build by emperor. The guide later told us that the carving was built in the Wuzhetian, the first woman empress in Chinese history. The cave was purposely carved on the upper level of the mountain. The visitors will climb many steps to reach the platform. The main Buddha image is very peaceful with rounded face which reflected the beauty image at the time.
We walked across a bridge to the other side of the Yi River. From the other side, we could see immerse size of the Longmen grotto. The caves were scatted along the mountain along the Yi river bank and stretched several miles. It was surely an impressive sight.
There was a small temple and the tomb of Baijuyi, a famous poet in the Tang dynasty. He spent the later years of his life with the site of great Longmen Grotto across the river. I wonder what Mr. Baijuyi thought when he viewed the magnificent Grotto.

Entrance to the Longmen Grotto

The 17 meter Buddha from the other side of the Yi River

Baijuyi Tomb