Dunhuang was a major location on the Silk Road and the western most reach of the Han Dynasty about 1600 years ago. Not so much after that. I read a book last winter about Aurel Stein and the discovery of the worlds oldest book in the Buddhist caves at Dunhuang. There are over 1000 caves that were built/carved and painted as Buddhist tributes near Dunhuang. In one of those a hidden room with thousands of documents that had been hidden for about 800 years was found about 1900. One of the documents was the Diamond Sutra which is about 600 years older than the Gutenberg Bible as a printed book. Mary had an interest in the caves and the painting so we went to Dunhuang. Pictures were not allowed in the caves themselves but you an find them by searching and here at the Chinese site.
The main structure on the cliff with the caves.
There is a new center a few miles from the caves and then you are bussed there. You have to be accompanied by a tour guide and because we had an English guide we were our own group. The Chinese toured in groups of 10 or 15. They allow 6000 people per day.
The tour took an hour or 2 and then the museum on site took another hour. This whole setup and the content was as good an old place as I’ve been to in China.Dunhuang is apparently far enough away from the rest of China that they do things different. They don’t even drive as crazy as the rest of China.
Dunhuang is on the edge of the desert which is why it became so important during the Silk Road era as it was the first settlement after the desert for travelers coming from the west (and the south from India) and it was the place to stock up and prepare to cross the desert when traveling west and south. As a result it was a crossroad for may ancient cultures. Another site is what is called Crescent Lake and the singing dunes which were just up the road from our hotel. Crescent Lake was a small temple and a source of water (quite a small one) at the edge of the desert dunes.
The second day there we went about 30 miles further west to a pass that was a military control point. There had been a recreation of the “fort” built along with the ruins of some of the old watch towers.
This was another place that was quite spread out so to get to the outer area you could walk, ride a horse, or travel by assmobile. We chose the latter.
Once you got there there was a lot of this.
and this.
In the same little town we had lunch at a vineyard where they grew grapes for eating not wine. We sat in the vines and ate the grapes right from the vine while eating, what a concept.
After the lunch we went across the road and bought some grapes right off the vine.
Hanging out in the grapes.
On the way back to Dunhuang we passed a guy taking his sheep out for a spin in his 3 wheel motorcycle truck thing.
And finally when you think of China you don’t usually think of concern for human safety and stupid things lawyers think about in this country. But the shower in the hotel showed a side of China that you have probably not considered. Here is China’s proof of concern for the shower taking public and the sign supporting that.
With the trip completed we flew back to Zhuhai for the last weekend before I returned to the US. Mary has left for 2 weeks in Europe and I’ll be back in China in November. 2 months is longer than 1 month.