DUNHUANG, CHINA: THE MOGAO CAVES

Our last stop during the Dunhuang portion of our journey along the Silk Road was the Mogao Caves--also called Mogao Grottoes--another mind-blowing UNESCO World Heritage Site I had never heard of before this trip. 

I've decided that western China is ripe for a tourist explosion. They have clearly been working hard to build their infrastructure to support more tourism, and the sites themselves are also being developed to make them more accessible to foreigners, including the use of English descriptions.

Now if they would just add some more western-style toilets. In most of the places we visited in China (aside from our hotels), we had no option but squat toilets. I'm all for experiencing the local culture, but . . . 

Okay, okay, back to the caves. Our tour buses left our hotel early (7:30 AM) so that we could beat the crowds, but alas, it was the beginning of an eight-day national holiday in China, and so a lot of the locals had the same plan that we did. After a 30-minute bus ride, we went through a gate, got off the bus, and reboarded a shuttle bus for another 30-minute ride to the caves.

These man-made grottoes house 1,000 years of the largest collection of Buddhist art in the world. There are 735 caves, and so far 492 have been opened and restored to some degree. The caves in the photo below, seen from our shuttle bus, are still in their original state and are not open to tourists:

Note the caves on the far side of the dry riverbed:

The first caves were carved into the cliffs in the 4th century AD, and the final caves were created in the 14th century. There are 485,000 square feet of murals and more than 2,000 painted sculptures within those caves.

CHINA: THE GREAT WALL OF THE HAN DYNASTY AND THE JADE GATE

Our next stop (in roughly the same area as the Yardang National Geopark) was the Great Wall of the Han Dynasty:

The symbols on the top of the above rock are the World Heritage symbol and the the UNESCO symbol:

We visited the Great Wall of China near Beijing about 10 years ago, and in my mind, that wall extended a great distance, always looking more or less like the section we saw.  I was quite surprised on this trip to discover how dumb I am when it comes to the Great Wall. There are multiple unconnected sections built over the period of a couple thousand years, and a lot of them don't look at all like the section near Beijing:

Map from here

The Han Dynasty started in 202 BC and ended in 220 AD. It followed the Qin Dynasty (when China was first unified, the Great Wall was started, the Terracotta Warriors were created, etc.). The Han Dynasty is considered to be the "Golden Age" of China. Much of the significant portions of the early wall were built during those years:

Map from here

The Silk Road trading route was in place by this time period, and this part of the wall was built as a defense against the pesky Mongolians.

The section we visited was in an area that looked very uninviting, and I wondered why anyone would come here, but as part of the Silk Road passage to and from the west, this region saw a lot of travelers:

  What remains of the wall doesn't look a thing like the Great Wall near Beijing:

DUNHUANG, CHINA: YARDANG NATIONAL GEOPARK

About 110 miles northwest of Dunhuang is a lonely section of desert known as Yardang National Geopark. It covers 154 square miles and is dotted with strange rock formations that developed over a 700,000 year period. The dictionary defines "yardang" as "a sharp, irregular ridge of compact sand lying in the direction of the prevailing wind in exposed desert regions, formed by the wind erosion of adjacent material that is less resistant."

Who knew?

A sign near one of the parking lots notes, "The major landscapes of this geo area include mound shaped, wall shaped, tower shaped and columnar Yardang landforms, which are very lifelike and has [sic] become the real ghost city in western China, and associated with the vast gobi and desert."

You get the idea, right?

The map below shows the numerous major formations in the park:

"Global Geoparks" became a category under UNESCO in 2015 and that designation was given to Yardang. By the way, China has 52 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, second only to Italy, which has 53. My guess is that as China continues to develop its tourist industry, it will soon take over the #1 spot.

The descriptions of various landforms on signs in the geopark make me smile. This one is the "Tower-shaped Yardang (Gold Lion Greeting Guests)," which "seems to be watching and welcoming tourists from afar":

Here he is:

DUNHUANG, CHINA: EATING OUT, THE NIGHT MARKET, AND THE SUN GRAND HOTEL

Early on in this trip we determined to escape the massive tour group dinners as often as we could. Besides, Bob had heard of some regional delicacies in Dunhuang that he was pretty sure weren't going to show up on our plates at those generic meals, and he was determined to find a place where they would.

On our first night in Dunhuang, Bob asked Orlando (the name our Chinese guide chose for herself) if there was a place nearby that served donkey and camel meat, the specialties he was most interested in. She said there was and offered to take us there. It happened to be about two blocks from our hotel, a very short walk. We coerced coaxed Terry and Geneil to go with us and set off.

When we arrived, it appeared that we were the only guests in the restaurant, which was a bit of a concern since it was Saturday night. Orlando called the establishment "The Happiness and Lucky Restaurant," which may account for the almost all-red decor; red is the color that symbolizes both happiness and good luck for the Chinese.

We sat around a large round table, and before she left us, Orlando ordered from the all-Chinese menu, which was very helpful since we can read ZERO Chinese and the staff spoke ZERO English. We should have had Orlando arrange the price as well, but more on that later.

Bob had her order two donkey meat dishes and camel "three ways" (paw, hump, and generic meat). Terry and Geneil wisely ordered a chicken dish, but which turned out to be something other than chicken--perhaps goose? Our table was quite full:

DUNHUANG, CHINA: THE GOBI DESERT SAND DUNES

The Gobi Desert, which covers 500,000 square miles, is the 5th largest desert in the world. There is a dramatic demarcation between vegetation and dunes where this desert borders Dunhuang in northwestern China:

The contrast is simultaneously jarring and sublime:

DUNHUANG, CHINA: RIDING CAMELS IN THE GOBI DESERT

After our two-day pre-tour tour in Xi'an, we boarded a plane with the other members of our tour group and flew to Dunhuang, a distance of about 1,070 miles, or just a little farther than it is from where I live in Redlands, California, to Portland, Oregon. 

The Dunhuang Airport definitely looks like it belongs in China

The airport had one of those "think happy thoughts" signs like the ones we saw in Xi'an. This one advises, "Create a national civilized city, establish Dunhuang's new image."

There is always plenty to see out the bus window. Nope. We don't have these three-wheelers in California: