From Wikipedia:
The Tanzhe Temple (Chinese: 潭柘寺; pinyin: Tán Zhè Sì; literally “Temple of Pool and Zhe Tree”) is a Buddhist temple situated in the Western Hills, a mountainous area in western Beijing. It is one of the oldest and most well-known temples in Beijing. At one time, it was one of the most important temples in the nation. Built in the Jin Dynasty (265–420), it has an age of around 1,700 years.
Tanzhe Temple is about a two hour journey away from my flat (First a 20 minute metro journey to Pingguoyuan – 苹果园 and then a good hour and a bit journey on the number 931 bus). Yet again, public transport amazed me here. The metro trip only cost me £0.20 and once I arrived at the bus stop, I was surprised to see a modern air-conditioned coach turn up to whisk me away. Not only was it a comfortable journey, but with my 80% student discount bus card, the journey there and back cost me a mere £0.26! Apparently the Beijing local city government pumps a lot of subsidies into public transport here as one of a myriad of strategies used to decrease air pollution.
The temple itself is situated within the Western Hills in a lovely woodland area and it was nice to find a calm tourist spot with relatively few noisy tour groups visiting each day. Surprisingly for a Chinese tourist attraction, most signs were also translated into Japanese, English and Korean and the ticket price for the attraction was very reasonable (£2.20 for students). I spent the morning wandering around taking some photos and breathing in the incessant perfume of burning incense. It’s lovely to escape from the chaos of Beijing, even if it’s just for a few hours. There is something very atmospheric and ancient about this place – some of the trees were over a thousand years old and many of the buildings had been around for a similar amount of time.
