Hotaugau to Dunhuang
Trip Start
Aug 14, 2008
1
8
Trip End
Ongoing
Dunghuang,
China
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
I tried to buy a ticket from the kiosk, and after much tooing and frooing and phoning the police they made negative gestures that clearly indicated they couldn't sell me a ticket. The lady in charge came out and of the kiosk and tried to explain something in Chinese, pointing in the same direction up the street that Ian had dissapeared in. After much manic gesticulations and mutually incomprehensible shouting, I signalled her to tell a waiting Taxi driver where to take me. In the event there was another bus station just 5 minutes walk up the street and I found Ian there waiting for his bus. Five minutes later the Hong Kong guy showed up in a taxi from his Chinese nationals only hotel. He helped us buy our tickets, mine for Dunhuang cost 97Y.
Ten minutes later and our bus was ready to depart and amidst tearful handshakes, I said goodbyes, mounted my bus and we set off. Seeing Hotaugau as we left it in broad daylight, it seemed a far less prepossessing place than the previous night. There wasn't a blade of grass in the town, and nodding donkey oil dericks surrounded it. It appeared a completely alien construction in the surrounding barren landscape. Every conceivable thing needed to sustain life in Hotaugau had to be imported by truck.
The journey to Dunhuang took 8 hours. Most of it was just the same bleak upland desert devoid of any features whatsoever. We passed through some areas of savagely eroded landscape forms that could easily be mistaken for ruined cities with their surprisingly regular features, that resembled the remains of gigantic walls. We stopped for 45 minutes for lunch in another barren town. I managed to gesticulate that I wanted to eat in what passed for a restaurant there, and I was rewarded with a bowl of noodles for my pains.
Shortly after leaving the town, a mountain range came into view and eventually the road turned more or less due East and we continued for an hour or more in this direction, until the mountains had subsided into a low range of hills. It took the bus about 30 minutes to get through the hills and we emerged into a true Sand desert which I figured must be part of the Gobi. It was similar to parts of the Takla Makan, but the duststorms were far less ferocious. There was a thin film of sand on the road, and it was fun to watch the constantly changing patterns in front of the bus as the wind blew it.
Finally at 4.30 in the afternoon we reached Dunghuang. Although Dunhuang is a desert town, it's completely unlike Hotaugau, as its an Oasis town with a long history and a natural water supply and the appropriate greenery that goes with it. It was with relief and a small amount of regret that my road trip across the desert of Western China was over.
