Shanxi Cave Dwellings

In Shanxi province people have been living in caves for 5,000 years. It is believed, so the Lonely Planet China, that once a quarter of the population lived underground. Today, Shanxi's countryside is still full of cave dwellings. Although these days most of them are abandoned, incredibly, 3 millions still live in caves. They are cheap and easy to make, better insulated, are nowadays connected to the national grid and even have internet connection. However, there is no running water or sewerage. 

We went to the remote 550 year old village Lijiashan, where most of the people are named Li, to see ourselves. The village is on a hillside next to the Yellow River. To get there from Pingyao you have take a bus to Lishi bus station (117km, 2.5 hours by bus) and from there to Qikou. (The latter is about 47km apart or 3 hours by bus to go there and, curiously, 1 hour to go back the same way.) 

From Qikou you have to cross the river, walk alongside for about half an hour and turn left at the blue sign 李家山 (If you are going there, note that it is the second sign written only in Chinese characters.). From there it is another 20 minutes uphill. There are hundreds of cave dwellings scaling nine storeys high. Indeed most of them are abandoned as is the school now. It is reported in the same above mentioned travel guide that the local school used to have four pupils. 

It is lovely to wander around the terraced village, watch the remaining villagers and have a peak into the abandoned caves. We also met Sean there, an Australian who has been teaching English in Shanghai for the last year and was so happy to meet two other tourists in the village. :-) 

The photos from Lijianshan with the caves, the school and our cave "hotel" room with the Li family can be found in the "Shanxi" set on Flickr. The first image is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xhardy/6028014311/in/set-72157627410141816.

And, before closing, thanks Google for providing Google Translate. This helped to explain our host that we had to get up at 4:30 am to catch the 6 o'clock bus from Qikou and that we will not have breakfast. Well, finally we agreed that it was not the best idea but Mr. Li would arrange a taxi to collect us at quarter to six. So, in the end there was a back road to the "remote" village and we were glad that we did not have to hike through pitch dark mountain trails the next morning.