The Hanging Monastery does exactly as its name suggests. It was built onto the side of a mountain, which towers away at a near vertical angle; it is secured to the rock face by a series of long wooden poles, which reach down and rest in various nooks, shelves, and crevices along the cliff. Staring at it from a distance, the stilts give the impression of a rock-climber at full stretch, hanging on by his finger tips to avoid plummeting to his death.

According to our CITS (China International Tourist Service) guide, Hanging Monastery was built in its precarious location to prevent it from being swept away by the river that ran along the valley floor below, a fate that befell several structures built previously further down the mountainside. Nowadays the damming of the river ensures that the threat of being swept away has diminished. However, it seemed to me that the monastery is being placed in danger from a new threat, tourism.

I visited the monastery during China's Labor Day vacation and it was crowded, very crowded. So crowded in fact, that I was forced to wait a full hour and a half before I could come anywhere close to actually entering the monastery. The prolonged wait may well have been quite boring, but it did give me a chance to peer up the mountainside and admire the structure in great detail.

The style of the monastery was typically Chinese and nothing especially impressive in itself. It boasted traditional flared, green, tiled eaves garnished in gold leaf all atop a red wooden structure. The beauty of the place is the way it is perched onto a small shelf around 50m up the mountainside.

Even from a distance it all seemed so delicate and so precarious. The supporting stilts were just a few centimeters in diameter and almost everything else also seemed to be have scaled down too. This continued once I was eventually allowed part way up the mountain and into the monastery itself. I felt as though I had entered some sort of spiritual doll's house: the roof was so low that I had to stoop for almost the whole time and the walkways were barely 2 feet wide. As I shuffled around in company with what seemed like several thousand Chinese tourists I could almost feel and hear the ancient timbers groaning under our collective weight.

The way something so intricate could cling to life in such a treacherous setting was wonderful. I did wonder though, how long it could persist considering the volume of tourist traffic it now attracts. I do worry one day it might just meet a Newtonian demise.

Considering how long along it was constructed I really found it incredible that it was built from the top down. Rappelling down cliffs with safety gear is currently a feat. To have down such back then and with supplies doesn’t seem possible. It must have been quite scary and wonder how many people did not survive it.

Elaborate bridges and corridors connected pavilions and caves which house various statues. I was very impressed with Three Religions Hall where the leaders of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism are enshrined together. Our guide was wonderful about explaining how Buddhism actually came from India and pointing out facts about the statues of him. We saw statues of both Buddha and Bodhisattva and were asked if knew which statue was which. Buddha has been purified from a defilements. He never sits cross legged, instead the right leg is placed on top of the left one as it most comfortable. He has his right arm up in the air, a sign of and the left down with the thumb and middle finger in contact, a sign of He also is either bald or has curly hair and his clothing is very basic. Bodhisattva (devotes life to achieving Buddhahood) sits crossed legged, wears a crown and has more elaborate clothing. I now find myself viewing statues of Buddha/Bodhisattva in a different light know the differences.

Allow 2 hours. The cost is Y45 and the hours are 9:00-5:00pm