I had finally made it: Wutaishan. It's not the last one for my China WHS but certainly one that should have been visited earlier than a few odd ones on the list especially seeing that it's only a <5h ride from Beijing (west 2nd ring road even but rush hour would add another hour for sure). Personally I had always put this off because I wanted to go via public transportation or at least a long-distance bus but in spring there is only one bus from Beijing daily, the train arrives at the nearby town of Shahe at midnight, the return train (requiring to buy a ticket from Taiyuan but can be boarded anywhere) is a sleeper - altogether this doesn't sound so bad but then you take a minivan to the Wutaishan area, pay for the green bus routes to get around, return to the main town. All this hassle? I found a tour instead. I usually hate them but avoided all shopping and prayer sessions, didn't mind the 5am wakeup calls, the mediocre food and the staff were super friendly. The only downside was the local guide who was BSing a lot of the religious aspect, i.e. "you give a certain deity a (monetary) gift and you'll feel better - get rid of your nightmares...", the restaurant also tried to offload "blessed" beads before you get something to eat.

As part of the tour the entrance ticket was included, the green bus ticket is not mandatory, but you still have to pay for the temples themselves that require a ticket as well as the ski lift to Dailuoding temple. The tour only includes visiting said temple, not enough time to do the pilgrimage hike up the stairs so you either pay for the return lift or stay around the shopping area. The first day was mainly spent at Zhenhai Temple where the guide literally explained every nook and cranny here. Next stop was the large Xiantong temple (pictured above), one of the five Zen temples. Another short visit was Puhua temple, and the last one a small temple called Luohou. If setting your own itinerary there appear to be a dozen places to visit in this area alone but I'm not sure they are open for visitors. For these the guide didn't spend much time explaining anything.

Overall I don't think I can justify spending "only" 2 days in this area but I'm also not interested to see more temples. The view from the Dailuoding is magnificent, with the iconic stupa of Tayuan temple (pictured) suddenly feeling less impressive than standing next to it in the valley.

April still had snow but I was also unlucky with the weather - the first day was around 0 degrees Celsius. The next day was ~10 and I peeled off a layer. Beijing, just to compare, is close to 20 around that time.