On the late evening of 22.5 we finally completed the lengthy and cold Xining-detour. We arrived in Dunhuang, unfortunately missing Horst's family who just departed on their own journey. Dunhuang is a buzzing, lively, lovely tourist city. It felt like x-mas riding downtown as the streets are decorated over and over with colorful lighting strings. Finding a hotel was not easy: not too cheap – as usually filthy and dubious, not too fancy and expensive, good parking for the bikes, proximity to pedestrian zone, … jaja, we know what we want!
Why was it not easy to find accommodation? Because Dunhuang is very famous. It is located at a crossroads of the ancient Silk Road. In the era of hooved transportation (here mostly camels), this rich oasis was once a major stop and strategic position between Lhasa and India to one side, and Mongolia to the other side. Dunhuang has a fantastic market for dried fruits and all kinds of nuts. Here’s where we stocked up with snackies for the road and afterwards enjoyed dinner in the market.
Dunhuang is also the “base camp” for visiting the nearby Caves of the Thousand Buddhas or Mogao Caves, making it not only a strategic stop, but also a cultural and religious crossroads. Legend says that a Buddhist monk travelling on the silk road had a vision here around 366 AD. In the sunlight he saw a thousand Buddhas coming down from the sky in front of the conglomerate walls. Hence he started excavating caves where he had had his vision and retreated there for meditation. In the centuries thereafter more and more meditation caves or grottoes were created. Great to visit these caves, which are equally research site and the prime destination for streams of predominantly Thai worshipers. The caves contain very fine Buddhist murals with tails from Buddha’s life or sceneries from the silk road. Depending on the age of a mural – and the period of creation, the characters in the paintings had western, oriental, or rather Chinese features and where decorated in completely different styles. We had a very good Chinese guide, who knew her script very well and was able to explain many things to us. It’s amazing what can be read from these murals, but also from the huge Buddha statues (Over 32 meters tall and the second largest Buddha statutes in China), and also interesting to hear what treasures were destroyed or robbed by western expeditions and “the great earthquake” meaning the Cultural Revolution.
Later in the afternoon Boris and I took a ride around Dunhuang, for once with an unloaded bike. Just behind today’s busy “City of Sands” streets we discovered another Silk Road feature and today tourist attraction: Sand dunes! A big sea of them. We discovered the original oasis with its Cresant Lake, where caravans used to come for drinks and shelter. In order to escape the tourist hustle Boris and I climbed the first big sand dune and quickly got into a very secluded area. But climbing the steep sand dunes was absolutely exhausting. Two steps forward and one step back! We explain this not with the lack of fitness but with reverse altitude sickness. There’s just too much oxygen around for us now, coming from the Tibetan plateau. We enjoyed jumping around and sliding down the dunes and went for another creative photo session before heading back to town to meet up with the lads for dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment