Taihuai is the village at the floor of the Wutaishan valley, around which the central cluster of monasteries is built. It is small — a couple of pedestrianised streets, a handful of restaurants, a few hotels and guesthouses for pilgrims, and the bus park where the daily arrivals from Shanxi and Beijing pull in. Most of the major Wutaishan temples are within a fifteen-minute walk of each other here, and once you have a base in the village you can plan your visits according to weather and time of day.
The streets between the monasteries are busy with pilgrims in the morning, quieter in the afternoon, and almost empty after dark, when only the dim lighting of the bell towers and the smell of incense remain. Eat at one of the vegetarian Buddhist canteens (the zhai cai tradition is taken seriously here) and bring warm clothing — even in midsummer the valley nights are cold, and snow is possible from October to May.