China: Maijishan Grottoes

Maijishan Grottoes, a ride from Tianshui town, is absolutely awesome an beyond anything you’ve seen before – an absolute “wow factor”! It’s a mountain filled with grottoes and caves carved into its vertical surface – 194 caves with 7200 statues! The carvings date back to the late Qin Dynasty period (around the 4th century AD) and continued through the Qing Dynasty, thus representing over 1,500 years of history. The Maijishan Grottoes are a tot masterpiece of vertical engineering – they are carved into a red sand stone cliff high above the ground and climbing up here is not for the faint-hearted – you will be navigating a lot of vertical and horizontal and very narrow stairs, bolted directly into the vertical cliff. Walking these paths offers a dizzying perspective of the valley below and allows you to stand face-to-face with colossal statues that seem to float in mid-air. Almost all Buddha statues are made out of clay and positioned inside the caves carved out of the mountain.