On a wing and a prayer: The extraordinary hanging monasteries that cling to the sides of cliffs

When you're trying to connect with your god, it helps to find some peace and quiet, if you can.


But that was, indeed, no such problem for the architects of these impossibly built monasteries.


Constructed at dizzying heights on the sides of mountains, they ensured only the most devoted - and vertigo-free - followers would join them for prayer.
 
Many were only accessible by steep and secret paths in order to provide the most seclusion as they sought uninterrupted spiritual awakening.


By far the most precarious is a monastery that dangles seemingly in defiance of the laws of physics on the side of Mt Huashan in China.

Located around 75 miles east from Xi'an City of Shaanxi Province, Mt Huashan is known as 'The number one precipitous mountain under Heaven'. It is one of the five sacred mountains in China.                   More