Dunhuang And The Desert

This view was a dream come true for me. It is one of THE images of China that will always stick in my mind. This is the Gobi Desert near Dunhuang, the next staging post on my journey west and first stop on the Silk Road after leaving the Great Wall behind in Jiayuguan. I caught my bus at 12.30pm in Jiayuguan and it was a long, long journey through the featureless desert. The journey seemed to be lasting forever in fact. The day just kept on going. It was like time had stood still. Outside it looked like it was mid-afternoon but my mobile told me it was 7.30pm. It was then that it hit me just how far I'd come from Beijing over the last five days. China spans about 3 different timezones, but bizarrely enough everywhere is made to operate on 'Beijing Time' which really knocks the day about. This far out west opening hours all have to be modified to take this into account and people speak of 'Local Time' as well as 'Beijing Time', which is very confusing, especially as people's interpretation of what local time actually is can vary quite a bit! It lends the area a nice lazy atmosphere with lengthy siestas and lively, Mediterranean style late evenings. Dunhuang town was quite chilled itself, and I had a nice evening wandering round before turning in for the night.

Next morning I visited the Mogao caves for a guided tour around the grottoes, completing the trilogy of famous Buddhist cave art sites in China. I'd seen the Longmen caves near Luoyang and the Yungang caves near Datong - of which I thought Yungang to be the best - but Mogao was something else. The caves here are exceptionally preserved and are all still well-protected from the elements. I think the dry desert environment helps a lot, with precipitation being something like 5cm a year and evaporation somewhere in the range of 20cm! With this in mind it was all the more exceptional that on the way to the caves we passed by the ruins of a bridge that was apparently washed away in recent floods. Bizarre.

You are required to take a tour in order to see any of the caves here and can only see a certain selection at any time. It means you could revisit again and again and not see the same caves twice. I didn't have time for this but was very, very impressed with what I did see. I don't have any photos because they are very strict about all that, but the art was amazingly vivid inside and while maybe less monumentally impressive than Yungang it's original purpose and effect was much more tangible. Our guide was also amazing. She was a member of the research team based there and really took her time to explain everything and answer all our questions. Fantastic lady. The two weird Australian girls I'd met on the bus who'd gone with the cheaper Chinese tour guide were finished ages before we were done. Lost out there I think.
I returned from the caves to escape the afternoon heat and take a short nap, getting up late in the afternoon for some noodles and then to catch a bus out to the nearby sand dunes in the desert. There is some kind of desert theme park here, centred around a crescent shaped lake down amongst the dunes that has an astronomical entrance fee. Those in the know however take a walk along the line of the fence through the woods and back lanes until you reach the very end of the fence itself and can get in for free! I didn't push my luck by trying to get round to the park area, but I wasn't bothered about that in any case. What I wanted to do was climb the massive sand dunes. It was hard going up and I had to stop every few minutes for a swig of water and to catch my breath, but eventually I made it up to the top and was rewarded by amazing views over the lake and the edge of the oasis as poplar trees and gardens met the sand.
I climbed up along the ridge of the tall dunes and sat myself down to watch the sun set and the colour of the sands change with it from yellow to pink. Travelling can be a lot of hard work and pretty tiring at times, especially solo. By the time I arrived in Dunhuang I was beginning to feel pretty run down from the effort but when I climbed this dune those feelings instantly disappeared. I just sat, peacefully and watched. It was perfect.
Eventually though I had to climb back down, and before it got too dark. I found my way back alright but by the time I was walking from the foot of the dune along the lane back towards the main road and bus stop it was pitch black. As I was walking I suddenly became aware of something approaching me. I heard the tinkling of bells, saw movement along the edge of my vision, looked up and jumped right out of my skin as two huge dark shapes lunged toward me - all knees and humps and odour. It wasn't Santa, but a pair of camels being led back from the desert park to their stables for the night. In the absence of any street-lights I wasn't aware of them until they were right on top of me and I nearly crapped myself. Again and again these processions of animals passed me by in groups of as many as eight, obediently following a man on a bike or the back of a truck at a fair trot. It was quite a cool sight once my eyes had adjusted to the light sufficiently and I was certainly glad to have witnessed it. I still didn't sleep too well that night but I think that was more down to the tremendous snoring of one of the Japanese in my dorm than nightmarish visions of camels in the dark!