Adventures of: A Date With Dunhuang

Hello Friends,

Again, sincerest of apologies for being the worst friend/family member at keeping ya'll in the loop. I finally have put together part two of my holiday post - Dunhuang! As all time-lacking bloggers do, this post is heavy on the photos low on the anecdotes - but hey, at least it is something!

The night market of Dunhuang.

We took an extraordinarily long train to get to Dunhuang. We left at about 8:00 in the evening and did not get off the train until 12:30 the next afternoon! Although we were tired and grumpy from being folded into a tiny train car for so many hours, we did have an enjoyable ride. We had a compartment to ourselves, and the group of college students beside us kept daring the losers of their card games to come and talk to us. We kept ourselves entertained by playing games and buying all the trinkets that the passing salespeople had to offer. Sara bought two lovely holographic pictures, and a singing top. Karl made a great purchase of a Bob the Builder children's toy. After checking in to our hotel, we set out to sign up for a few tours and explore the city. Dunhuang is a small and peaceful city. It was a welcome change from the hectic nature of China! Chris and I split from the group for a bit, as we were excited to see the dunes as soon as possible. We took a bus to the dunes, a mere 10 minutes from the town, and set out on the task of climbing them! It was much more difficult than expected! The sand slips away under your feet, so every step is double the work. The top was worthwhile though, and we spent some time enjoying the hard earned view. The best part of climbing up the dune is racing downwards! The sand is incredibly soft, so we took off our shoes and just ran. If you fall you simply sink into the layers of sand! After our return to the town, we spent a quiet evening exploring the night market, and stocking up on snacks for our next busy day of exploration.

Picking up our ride into the desert!

In the wee hours of the morning, we went to wait outside in the cold for a bus to take us on a trip to see desert rock formations and sections of the ancient great wall. The bus was about an hour late, and we were hungry, tired and grumpy. Eventually we were loaded onto a giant tourist bus and began our trek into the desert. We had thought we signed up for an English tour, but instead we had signed up for a no-speaking tour with barely any stops! Essentially we drove for about five hours, and made about eight stops with 10 or fifteen minutes to explore begrudgingly doled out at each stop. After naps for everyone to restore our excitement in exploration, and accepting that the tour was not going to be as exciting as we hoped, we thoroughly enjoyed our day. The landscape was unique, and it was easy to imagine caravans of traders attempting to cross the Gobi to bring goods back from ancient China. We climbed rocks, took ridiculous photos, and got in a fight with an American couple. We were not aware that we were not allowed to climb the rocks, as our tour was completely in Chinese. Moreover, other people were climbing the rocks, setting a precedent we were eager to follow. What is the point of driving through the desert to see rock formations if you are not allowed to climb them! C'mon people! The lovely American couple in question informed us that we were an embarrassment to Americans for our foolish decision to climb the karst!

This is Val's camel. He kept getting mad because my camel wanted to go fast.

After returning from our bus trip we immediately left for our camel caravan. We went out into the desert to see the sunset. We rode through an old graveyard, and beyond to a giant series of dunes. As soon as we arrived at the dunes we set out to climb that as well (obviously...). Chris nearly passed out as he tried to go straight up; I met with more success by traversing sideways up the dune. It was a hard fight to the top but the view was amazing! Unfortunately I rely on Chris to take good pictures, so said amazing view is not well documented... The camel ride was one of the highlights of the week away for me. Although my behind was rather sore by the end of it, a camel ride was not as bumpy as I expected it to be!

A Camel Caravan

Riding into the sunset (apologies for the blurry photography, it is hard to stay steady on a camel).

On our final day in Dunhuang, Sara, Chris and I went to go see the Mogoa Grottos. They are a series of caves that have preserved paintings and religious texts in them. Although the history of the caves was very interesting (a series of fights between British archaeologists and the Chinese government), the caves themselves were rather unimpressive. The place was packed with tourists, and it took us more than an hour to even enter the complex. We were shoved through caves within minutes and the experience of being jammed in a small cave with 150 Chinese tourists did not make me too excited. We quickly hurried back to town to spend the afternoon at the dunes.

The view from my ultra-lite.

The first thing we did upon arrival at the dunes was to sign up to ride the ultra-lites. Only the ladies were brave enough to take off in these. They are essentially flying dune buggies, controlled by a bar, and powered by what looked like a lawn mower. They strap you in and toss a helmet on you, so I am sure I was safe! I managed to take a few photos of the view of up top. It was a pretty quick loop; I spent only about three minutes in the air. After the three of us safely landed we went to climb a few dunes and run around in the sand.

The oasis below my flying contraption.

A view at the steering mechanism.

Although we only had two and a half days in Dunhuang, it was enough to explore the sites. I could have spent more time climbing the dunes - but I am glad that Chris and I went the first day we arrived to get more time. The city is so unique, and I am not sure if I will ever get the chance to see sights like that again. On the evening of our last day we boarded our last night train to head back to Lanzhou, and then onwards to a Tibetan village called Xiahe.