Doing the Gobi

  Dunhuang, China
Thursday, May 26, 2005

The celebrations(?) are coming thick and fast now, with yesterday being my 1 year travelling anniversary. Auckland International Airport, May 24, 2004, I grabbed my bags and hopped on a plane for Bangkok. At this point, I'm probably meant to say that the time has just flown by, but it hasn't. Not a bad thing, not a good thing, just time seems to go slowly when you're doing this sort of thing. When you're working or have a routine, sometimes it feels like you blink and 6 months has passed. This sort of thing, its like you've been travelling for a lifetime. You come back, expecting so much to have changed, and it never has. People are more like "Oh, you're back already?".

Well, we're in the Gobi. Dunhuang to be precise, an oasis (in the literal sense). Here to see the famous Mogao Cave Grottoes and play in the sand. It was kind of weird, one morning walking in the snow, and then the next morning being in the desert under a baking sun.

Surprisingly good train journey here, considering we had the top bunks - we nabbed the seats early on, and had random conversations with a friendly computer programmer. He occupied himself for nearly the entire journey by reading my Lonely Planet (hey - at least someone's getting some use out of it). I get a bit worried when that happens (are we going to be chucked off the train when he reaches the political section?), but thankfully he only got as far as the basic travel info. It caused no end of amusement to himself and others when he read the recommendation that you should carry your own toilet paper around China (this is in the same train that a sodden, discarded newspaper on the loo floor seems to be the only publicly available toilet paper). Also had a chin wag with the train cop. They're not really interested in us, more in the locals (who's IDs they take and then check to see if they're allowed to be travelling in the hinterlands out here), but the Chinese don't need any excuse to talk to westies.

Fast train, so soon enough we were in a hill-country type setting, with lots of sheep herders doing their thing. Very picturesque, and quite weird to still be looking at it at 8:30pm - the sun sets late around here (all of China is in the same time zone - "Beijing Time"). You could tell who was going home and who was leaving home - the Lanzhou and eastwards residents had their noodles about 6 - 7pm, and the Urumqui (far far west) residents all opened their plastic pots about 9pm.

But the sun seems to get up early around here too, and when the train stopped at 8am it was already starting to get toastie. Just the thing when coming from the snow. The train actually stops at Liuyuan, so we had another 2hrs of bus before getting to Dunhuang. Only 15RMB, but I probaby would have paid more if there was an option that came with suspension. We were firmly in desert teritory now, but I was a bit confused that the ground and dunes were all black - it looked like a mining operation. Being China, I wouldn't be surprised if the black colouring is from pollution. After a while, the expected brown colour emerged, punctuated by the odd tussock-grass.

For most of the journey it was very flat (apart from the road...) and featureless, real desert. The odd mound of dirt bricks which the guidebook reckons are the remains of a Han-era Great Wall. Who knows? Even saw the odd (wild?) camel herd. But then it got quite green again, and for the last 30km to Dunhuang it was classic oasis (although, these days, I'm sure assisted by some un-natural irrigation).



That day we didn't do much. Checked into a hotel of course - "the Youhao Binguan" and eventually managed to have a hot shower. Not a bad place, only 60RMB a night, but takes a bit to get the hot water going. I stand in front of the floor monitor saying "re shuai" and holding my hand above my head with my fingers doing a sort of water-showering motion. Eventually the tumbler clicks. Passed on the technique to an English couple in the same hotel who were having similar problems. We're going to be kick-ass at charades when we get back to NZ.

Then just bummed around the pretty sleepy town of Dunhuang. Hot and dusty, with the occassional westerner walking by. Lots of western cafes here though, and english tours, so must have a fairly thriving population of westerners at some point, just not now. Seems to be the place in China to get toy camels, if that's what rings your bell.



The next morning we headed to the Mogao cave grottoes. Pretty expensive - 120RMB but it supposedly included an english guide. And at least we were expecting it, so had already done our usual stewing about how expensive being a tourist is in China. Half the bus was westerners, so we were happy we wouldn't have to wait long for a tour. Unfortunately, that didn't stop the ever present bus guide from a non-stop barrage of information, in Chinese, during the entire trip.

The caves are pretty cool I must say. In incredibly good condition (apart from the entrances being prettied-up) - god knows how they escaped the cultural revolution, and it certainly showed what a much richer historical experience China would have been without the damn Red Guard. Of course, needless damage had been done at some point - the government used the grottoes for a prison for the (decidedly un-Buddhist) white Russians in the early 20th century!! Also, foreigners and Chinese alike had pillaged the place of anything removable, with the Americans even stripping off some of the murals painted onto the walls! Sometimes its nice to be a kiwi, a country with not much of an Indiana-Jones-type history.



But even with these disasters, it has to be one of the oldest and most intact tourist sites in China. Basically, there's about 500 caves filled with various Buddhist statues and murals, carved into a cliff side. The highlights are a (now empty) cave where they found 10,000 historical and religious scrolls, and two caves with a massive buddha each (the guide was very Chinese in proudly telling us they were now the 3rd (35m) and 7th (26m) largest buddhas in the world). The big buddhas actually looked more impressive than Leshan to us. I think it was because they were in a cave, which seemed to magnify their grandeur, and they were in much better shape (colour wise).


This 9-storey building protects the bigger buddha, with his eyes peeking out the top window.

But also, there are caves and buildings dating from 366AD. A lot of the stuff from the Tang Dynasty (600 - 900AD) is still in very good shape and has its original colouring still. Pretty amazing to see something in its original state that was painted 1400 years ago! The murals are an important source of information for what buildings (which have all burnt down now) and human practices and tools looked like back then. The murals also show pictures of the sponsors and painters who made each cave, and you can trace the different styles of Buddha depiction (eg Tibetan vs Chinese, Northern Zhou Dynasty vs Tang Dynasty). Even where renovations have been done, they were done between 100 - 1000 years ago, so are interesting in themselves.

The tour guide was good too. For starters, she could actually speak english, which can never be assumed on an English-speaking tour. The real pity was that we only got to see 10 caves. You go around on a tour, and the caves are unlocked by the tour guide, so you have no freedom in choosing what or how many to see. We were really getting into it when she asked if we had enjoyed it, and now she would take us to the bookshop.

Just as we were leaving, we popped into the Exhibition Centre which we were surprised to find had another 5 caves, so that was a bit of a bummer - we just had time to pop our head into each before racing to catch the bus. Would have been good for them to mention that instead of taking us to a bookshop...

Then that evening we hired some bikes and headed in the direction of Mingsha Shan to climb some dunes in the Gobi.



We weren't actually heading into the park, as it had an 80RMB entry fee. Only in China could someone fence off the desert and charge entry. Instead we headed along the fence, eventually jumping the remains of it a bit down the road. Started climbing a dune and was quickly collared by a little communist-party man with his loudspeaker. Ignored him and kept heading up, so he called over the security guard. The same tactic worked with him too, so after much huffing and puffing, I got to the top of the dune. Wasn't a very tall one, but it was high enough to be able to work out where the park stopped, and where a good candidate was to watch the sunset from the top of.



Headed back down, in a combination of running, jumping, forward rolls and falling. Much easier than climbing up, although more sandy. Pass the security guard with his little badge, pass the communist with his little armband and loudspeaker and then landing in a heap at the fence. Would have paid good money for a boogy-board at the top.

So we headed along the road again and eventually found the dune I spotted. Hell of a hard job climbing up a sand dune. Took maybe a good hour to get to the top of a not exactly huge dune (although taller than anything in the park - maybe we were 100m up?). But very spectacular looking out over the top of it, to the sea of dunes on one side and the (unfortunately, now industrialised) oasis on the other side. Very stark - it goes from green crops to nothing but sand in only a few meters. Few others up there with us but they kept heading up the ridge to the very very top of the dune, quite some distance off.



Could see the famous crescent moon lake from the top - a lake sitting quite happily in a sea of dunes. It was surrounded by the rest of the park which, from where we were sitting, didn't seem to offer much for your 80RMB. Could also see the little communist who was a very lonely figure, sitting on a huge dune to make sure no-one crossed the fence. He was probably overjoyed with my little transgression - poor guy must be exceedingly bored.



The sun set as M sucked her lollipop and read a book, and then we headed down again - the bouncy way for me, and a more sedate method for M. The bouncy way stuns you a fair bit, so apparently the sight of me sitting in the sand making sand-angels was fairly common. (M: Frankly, I'd thought we'd broken him once...) It took a long, long shower before I was completely sandless again.



Another nothing day after that, a sleep-in (too many early morning buses of late), a haircut for me and then just bumming around town waiting for the bus to take us to the train to take us to Urumqi.