Silk Road Dunhuang

... Diamond Sutra, the first known printed book in the world - now in the British Museum.

Now, due to tourism and the general interest in the area, Dunhuang is again becoming an important place - with a new airport, a new casino [!] and a huge new station - all due to be completed in the next few years. So in a few years time....well, thank goodness we have missed out on those joys!

The ...

Dunhuang was our next stop along the Silk Road. It was a desert town where you could literately see huge sand dunes at the end of some of the roads. Our purpose there was to visit the Mogao Caves and although the caves that we saw were pretty impressive it was a bit of a disappointment. The caves were run in true Chinese tourist style. We had to have a guided tour, we could not take our cameras in and we ...

... a few dozen feet away but then you find yourself walking for an hour to get to it. Or if you are on the crest of a dune it is really hard to find the exact highest point because the dune is changing even as you are walking on it. So we are hiking up this dune and what I thought would take me 30 minutes tops turned into expedition. The hike to the top of that thing was one of the hardest things I think I've ever done! It took us an hour to get to the crest and by that time we ...

... able to see a fraction of the caves in the time we had available.

http://en.wikipedia.o rg/wiki/Mogao_Caves

The site was rediscovered in the early twentieth century by European explorers. The most infamous crime was the ransacking of the library cave when over 20,000 ancient documents were sent to the west. Defenders of the explorers or raiders claim that these documents would have been lost in the Cultural ...

... mais c'était quand même bien cool.

Au retour du trek, puisqu'on était pas alles si profond dans les dunes pour dormir (nous on était en chameau mais pas le guide et comprehensiblement il n'était pas en humeur de grimper des montagnes de sables de la hauteur de Bromont), on s'est organisés une deuxième expédition par nous mêmes, à pied. On s'est bien équipés avec nos litres d'eau etc pour survivre au désert ...

... 1493;ת וקפצת 97; מעל הפופי 11; החוט כל כך דק שאחרי רכבת של 14 שעות שישנת 97; וסרגת 97; יש לי קצת ...

... Hi ha cares llises i cares ondulades, ondulacions llargues i ondulacions curtes, de mar parat i de pell humana. Corbes, contracorbes, acords, faldes, casquets i cubetes. Llum sencera, llum trencada, llum rasant i ombres de llapis de carbo. Habitant el mon minim, angelets de borla de fil plumifer, rodolen i voleien, perduts, voleien i rodolen, sense saber on deixar anar la llavor encomanada, i llangardaixets albins de cap rodo deixen ...

... in China.Durch die Anwendung der neuesten Software-Algorithmus und den Mechanismus für Präzisions-Maschinenbau, die ...

... hair?!?!" It was very humorous - one of those 'China moments'... We got into Dunhuang very late at night and the train station is about 40 minutes outside of town, so we got a taxi and headed for town. On the way he was trying to get us to use him to take us places around Dunhuang, but we were so tired we didn't know what was going on...He was nice, so we decided to use him and we set up a time to meet in the morning. Once we made ...

... wasn't sure really what the landscape around the town was, the last I saw was mountain and snow really. This is desert country. There were a few hills around but not much. I could see loads of stars and a few lights in the distance but not enough for it to be a town. Then there was a sudden bang beneath me and a lot of loud noise. We stopped and most of the men got off to have a look and smoke. We kept going but a lot slower. The noise was there but not too bad. I ...