Gujun Hotel Dunhuang

... from England, France, America, Sweden, Russia, and Japan gradually removed thousands and thousands of precious documents, frescoes and carvings by paying the guardian paltry sums, which he used for the upkeep of the site.


In 1943 a Dunhuang Arts Academy was established which began to restore the cave and protect and research its remaining contents.Among the items removed by Stein, is ...

... only see a handful of caves. The caves suffered badly at the hands of an earthquake so to support them new fronts were built but these looked like 60's style urban concrete so ruined any impression of gaining a feel for what they looked liked. The frescos inside the caves were amazing and there was a really cool HUGE Buddha but overall we left a bit disappointed.

Time for another long train journey.

... we got to the bottom it was pitch dark and we had to use the bonfire to get us back. Our guides brought us watermelon and we were up until one playing tag.

Our wake up call was at 4:30 in the morning and after we packed up our sleeping bags and tents in the dark they bused us to the camel farm where we were supposed to ride to the top of the dunes to see the sunrise. The camels got us half way up the dune and than there were stairs we could take the rest of the way ...

We spent an uneventful night in another faceless Chinese Hotel eating great food from local restaurants. Note to anyone wanting to lose weight, try a total chinese diet, it works. The morning dawned bright and clear and we set off to one of the major focal points of this part of the trip. The Mogao Caves.

Finally a tourist stop for the Tombies. Simply put this is one of the greatest deposits of Buddhist art in the world. As ...

... 1493;חה למחר, אני מתכוו 03; להשכי 12; אופנו 06; ולנסו 06; ליאדא 03;. שמורה מדברי 14; בקצה גאנסו.
Dunhuang, Gansu, China blummo

... except we are having internet problems again, although the 'no pay' record still stands as they gave up on us last night as their cobbled together system wouldn't work for long enough. Here it was 'here's a modem, change all your settings to ours and good luck' I'm not willing to do that, as with my level of expertise, I may not be able to get it back at the next stop. Tomorrow we have to travel south for about 30 ks then it's back onto the 312 Silk Road to Hami.

... a bit so it didn't take us another 4,5 hours to get to camp but had enough time to set up my tent, have two beer i had been carrying in my back pannier for 30 km's. Dinner was served...a nice bowl of spaghetti bolognese, there were no leftovers as you can imagine.. we all were a little hungry. DAY 123 "8 hours an hour...." - desertcamp - 140km ...is what I did for many hours of the day..8km's!! The morning started off ok, Max and I were solving all worlds problems, but once ...

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... into little glasses that are typically used for baijiu - the Chinese rice wine. Well, that's what it was. Our mistake - the tour guide, in her translation of the word baijiu (which actually means 'white wine') misled us into thinking that we were actually getting grape wine, not rice wine...oh well, it was a nice baijiu...All in all, it was a nice stop and I definitely recommend it. After that we stopped off for some lunch at ...

... of. He checked I had enough water when the guide must have mentioned it and wrote when the bus was leaving. It was hard work in the sun of the day but good. Excellent views from the top of more dunes and the city behind, the camels soon caught us up but we keep going higher. We headed of over areas without foot prints so that was exciting. Soft sand at times and harder at other times, which was easier too. Suddenly we were above the Crescent Moon Lake. We walked ...