Hohhot

Dazhao Temple

Dazhao Temple is the oldest building and the largest temple in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Locally, people usually refer to it as the Silver Buddha Temple (Yinfo Si) for it is here that there is a rare silver statue of Sakyamuni that measures 2.5-meter-high (8.2-foot-high).
The temple is now a well-known tourist attraction because of the impressive buildings, splendid statues, delicate frescos, musical instruments and fine collection of Buddhist scriptures. Of its abundant religious relics perhaps the most notable are the 'Three Marvelous Treasures', a title given to the Silver Buddha, the carved dragons on the huge golden pillars on either side of the statue and the murals commemorating the Emperor's visit.

Except for the main hall, the existing buildings within the temple complex are nearly all in the Han style. The main hall is a lamasery combining both Tibetan and Han styles of architecture. It has three parts. The front part is a two-story hall with an empty pavilion in the first floor; Jing Tang (the hall for chanting) and Fo Tang (the hall for worshiping Buddha) are central and rear sections. The perfectly preserved Silver Buddha lies in Fo Tang as it has for some four hundred years. In the splendid and solemn front of the hall, there is a pair of iron lions with their heads held high.

Wudangzhao

Wudangzhao is situated on Jihuluntu Mountain 54 kilometers north of Baotou city, it is a state-level key relics protection unit. Because it was built in the Wudang Gully of the Daqing Mountain, it is named "Wudangzhao". Built during the reignof Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, Wangdaozhao is the biggest Tibetan Buddhist temple in Inner Mongolia. With an area of over 300 mu, it has 2,530 storehouses. In its prime, there were over 1200 lamas in the temple. Wudangzhao Temple is one of the three major temples of Tibetan Buddhism together with the Potala Palace in Tibet and Ta'er Monastery. 

Wudangzhao is composed of six halls for chanting Buddhist scriptures, three Living Buddha mansions, one mausoleum and multiple lama dormitories. They are Suguqin Hall, Dongkuo'er Hall, Queyilin Hall, Ahui Hall, Rimulun Hall. All of the buildings have a Tibetan-style, flat-topped andsquare structure. All the buildings have a special appeal at different levels. Among the pine and cypress trees, the temple looks even grander.

Five Pagoda Temple

Built in the 10th Year of Yongzheng in Qing Dynasty in 1731, the Five Pagoda Temple was originally a Lamaism temple. There is a straight and beautiful pagoda for Buddhist relics with Buddha's warrior seat, so it is commonly called "The Five Pagoda Temple".
The body of the pagoda is brick and stone, as high as 16.5 meters, it is a huge rectangle with beautiful modeling. There decorated with colored glaze bricks out of the pagoda body with inlayed full of white stones at the edges and corners. The bottom of the Buddha's warrior seat is like a protuberance, built on the one-centimeter-high base.

At the waist of the body there carved patterns and pictures such as lions and elephants. As to the Buddha's warrior seat, it has 7 layers at all, the first floor inlayed scripture written in Mongolian, Tibetan and Fan three kinds of characters with exquisite carving and graceful line. From the second floor to the seventh eave, there are 1,119 gold-plating Buddha statues in various gestures.

There is an arched door in the center of the Buddha's warrior seat with the Four Heavenly Kings' statues carved on both sides. In the door there are palaces without crossbeams and in east and west sides there are ladders leading to the top of the Buddha's warrior seat. There is a 4-angle square pavilion there and in the pavilion there placed those five famous square Buddhist relics pagodas.

The central small pagoda has seven layers, as high as 6.62 meters, while the other four pagodas have five layers. The bodies of these five pagodas are inlayed statues of Buddha and Bodhisattva, the carving is exquisite and careful.

Resonant Sand Gorge

The Resonant Sand Gorge is situated at the north edge of the Kubuqi Desert, 3 kilometers away from the 210 state highway and 44 kilometers from Baotou in the north. It is more a place of natural beauty than of historical importance. Backed by the Kubuqi Desert, the dunes assume a crescent shape with a height of 110 meters and gradient of 45 degrees. It received its name from the echoing "Shhhh" that the sand makes as you step on the surface. It is filled with junes of dunes trapped within steep rock walls. It's said that the noise of sliding sand, after which the place is named, was thought by Marco Polo to be demons seeking to lure travelers to their death.