Lesson learned

Don't travel in China at the beginning or end of a national holiday week. I was fine in arriving in Datong (and saw all that I wanted to yesterday), but now I'm stuck here until tomorrow at the very earliest. No trains or buses to Tang Shan, Beijing or even Tianjin. I even considered Pingyao (south of me) but there was no train there, either. Today's travel insanity created a new record in China: 5.7 million took trains and 40 million packed the roads in cars and buses. ... yay.

So yeah... don't nobody panic if you don't hear from me until Monday morning (EST). That's likely the soonest I'll be home. I'm trying for tomorrow, but it's highly doubtful. I'll be waking up at 5am and going directly to the bus station, then train station if there's nothing. If no luck, then I'm locked in here until Monday. I had the biggest claustrophobia-esque panic attack this morning realizing I was stranded here, and with ebbing cash. Now that the latter has been rectified, I'm not doing badly. Just pissed. Got lots of great photos, anyway, mostly from Yungang Caves (which were absolutely amazing).

Heading to grab a bottle of beer, and hitting my hotel room for now. CCTV 9 here I come. Tonight, hopefully gunna grab a beer with a couple of Swedish backpackers I invited over to my table for lunch a few hours ago.

Mom, I burned incense at Yungang Caves in front of a 1600 year old Buddha for Poppa. I'm sure he'd grumble about heathen rituals, etc, but that was the best I could do. Hope all is going well in Sudbury.