Phase Three: Dunhuang

Waking up to the sounds of a Chinese sleeper car, looking out the window and seeing a beautiful sunrise over the flat expanse of the Gobi desert was a little surreal. We were all pretty quiet, until somebody peeped up with the comment “ I feel like I am living someone else’s life right now.” It was pretty easy to agree with that sentiment as people squeezed by chattering to one another in heavily accented “Gansuese” and we sat chewing on pomegranate seeds for breakfast.

It was bitterly cold as we stepped onto the platform… surprising some in our group and prompting all of us to bundle up in our jackets as we bargained for a cab. We shared a taxi into Dunhuang with an older couple who had sold all their possessions and were travelling around the world in their retirement. They shared stories with us about our next destination Xiahe, which got us pumped about our choice of itinerary.

Our hostel was actually outside the “city” itself, close to the megadunes (in fact there was one literally in the backyard of the hostel). We had booked one large dorm room, but when we got there, we were told that that was not available and we would have to split into several rooms. We eventually managed to convince the manager that we wanted to put three of us into two of the cottages out in the garden. It was a good choice of accommodations, as we felt like we were really immersed in the whole experience. Whether it was getting woken up by a Chinese family harvesting dates from the trees above our cabins, having goats run by our front porch, or cuddling up together on top of the one electric blanket during the middle of the cold desert night, the place added to the feeling of  our escapade.

You only have an unheated cabin in the desert you say? We'll take it!

A peaceful resident

Dates were drying everywhere, one of this area's bigger exports (along with bottles of sand)

We made our way back into town, and after brunch and some planning, we moved out again to go to the Mogao Ku. The Mogao Caves are a UNESCO world heritage site and are a repository of some of the best Buddhist art in the world. More than 1500 caves were carved out of the rock at this site from 300 AD to around 1900. The wealth generated by its position athwart the Silk Road transportation route meant that Dunhuang had plenty of wealthy donors who put up a hell of a lot of cash, at times employing thousands of artisans and monks to help create some of the amazing cave art.

The caves are famous in China, and more than 10,000 visitors can visit the caves each day during the National Holiday. We had to wait until there were enough foreign visitors gathered together for the site to send an English speaking tour guide with us into the caves. The word cave conjures up dank, musty places full of bats, but these caves have all been heavily reinforced and restored so that no further damage can be done to the centuries old statues and paintings. Two of the largest caves had “Future Buddha” figures that were over 35 meters tall, which should give you an idea of the immense size of some of the artwork there. Painted apsaras, bodhisattvas, Buddha statues, and the thousand Buddha motif were everywhere, and it was a pretty amazing place to visit. Obviously it would have been a little more fun to have the place to ourselves and to enjoy the caves in relative quiet and at our own pace, but this was the National holiday in China, and we were just another bunch of tourists.

Looking Epic at yet another UNESCO site!

Stolen pics!

This is the past Buddha

Catherine and Paul, ready to Spelunk the shit out of some caves.

When our tour was over, we jumped onto the next bus and raced back to Dunhuang. We were running late for our next adventure that we had booked earlier that morning, and we wanted to grab dinner before heading out. Being the efficient group of travellers that we are, we split up and some of us tracked down some grub from Charlie’s café (the same Charlie that owned our hostel and who helped book our evening excursion- he had his hand in almost every tourist venture the town had on offer).

We made it back in time to chow down some grub before we were picked up and whisked off to meet our guide for a four hour camel trek to watch the sun set over the dunes. All the taxi drivers in Dunhuang were wonderful- safe, cautious and courteous – but this fellow was the best of the bunch. He was chatting with us, offering us smokes and laughing at our refusals and he even called his friend to tell them that he had a load of “spicy white people” in his car and would be a little late!

We got dropped off at the edge of the desert, where our camel drover was waiting with our caravan. We got to ride Bactrian (two humped) camels which are almost extinct in the wild, so Paul was pretty pumped.  The camels lie down for you to get onto the saddle which is constructed of wood and pillows filled with beans (or maybe rice?). You sit in between the humps, and the camel stands up and takes of as if you were not even there. The ride is much more of a side to side motion then with a horse, but (depending on your saddle) it is not altogether that uncomfortable. Most of us did end up with sore backsides and some even had saddle rub on our bare legs, but the experience was worth it.

Our caravan consisted of the six of us, plus Elena, another Canadian teacher from near Shanghai who we picked up on the train, and two Chinese women. We rode past cotton fields and out into the desert proper, where we made our way through a traditional cemetery. After about forty minutes of riding, the two Chinese women parted ways with us, to join a group that was going on a several day long camel ride through the desert (COOL!). Our drover then took us up the megadunes to try and catch the fast approaching sunset before it was too late.

A face only a mother camel could love



Clearly having no fun



Alice the camel had 2 humps......

Since every villager owns a camel they brand them with the family name

Mini silk road perhaps? Nope! Chinese burial grounds

The megadunes are just that… mega. The tallest reach over 1500 meters and are made entirely of sand. The camels made it over half way up one of the large ones before it became too steep and we had to continue climbing on our own- a challenge because of the steepness and because the sand slides out from under you as you move.

Paul launching himself off the megadune

(L - R) Morgan, Erica, Will, Kristen, Catherine and Paul

Paul kept saying, "if we photoshop in another moon it could be Tatooine".

The stair master at the gym is for wussies, if you want a real workout run up a megadune!

We rode home elated. The sky was clear, the moon out, and our camels cast shadows as they found their way over the sand back to the edge of the desert. Altogether the experience was one of the coolest we have had in our travel to date.

We had spicy kebabs (“chwar”) of mutton, chicken livers, potato, vegetables and tofu from the night market that evening. The spice was considerable, so we cut the burn with fresh yogurt and milk tea before heading out to admire the silks, carving, polished desert gemstones, dried apricots and grapes that were being sold. After a few minutes of bargaining and chowing down on delicious food, we tumbled into taxis and found our way back to the freezing cabin where we bundled into bed and slept the sleep of the happily exhausted.