Tom: Dunhuang (June 18)

Dunhuang (June 18) · Jun 22, 07:45 AM

It happens so much now — I sleep lightly, aware that our train reaches Liuyuan around six, but I don’t finally clamber down out of my bunk until the accountant rises at quarter past five. I wash up, pack, and admire the barren landscape passing by outside the window. The accountant, an old man traveling with her, another random Chinese man, and myself split a 120 RMB taxi four ways. It’s ninety minutes through black rough hills and then open desert to Dunhuang. A line in the sand divides desert from oasis.

I check into the Feitian Binguan just after eight and skip a shower to join a tour from the hotel to the Mogao Buddhist caves. For thirty RMB I get return transport to the caves and (later this afternoon) to the Mingsha Shan (“Singing Sand Mountain”). The caves are gorgeous and protected by an exterior wall with locked doors — only twenty are open to the public on any given calendar year. Maybe even these will be sealed off to the public if suitable replicas are built; tourist breath and body heat destroys the murals. I hooked up with an English guided tour. On the way, after I had rejoined my original Chinese tour, we stopped at an exhibition hall where — thankfully for our guide — a Chinese couple bought something or other. At the hotel I ditched the tour bus and walked to the train ticket booking station to stand in line to buy my hard sleeper to Turpan. A nearby market street was lightly crowded.

By the hotel I tried the Dunhuang pulled noodles and then rented a bike (one hour, one RMB) from Shirley’s Cafe, one of the western cafe’s on the main street here. The dunes are fifteen minutes south on that road, you approach the sand mountains on a wide, tree-lines avenue. The entrance fee is eighty yuan. I lock my bike and walk in, passing touts for dune buggies, camel tours, and an ultralight plane ride. The camels are trekking up to an intermediate half-way point off to the left — I trudge through and alongside the camel-path and stop to catch my breath, admire the view, and purchase a useless 10 RMB ticket for a slide ride down which I will never take. I thought I needed to the ticket to go up. After a tough short hike up steep ladder-like stair steps buried in the sand I paused longer to catch my breath. Great pictures. Then I walk off along the ridge towards the far side of the park. The late afternoon sun highlights strange windswept features in the sand. My walk is tranquil and strenuous, and halfway there I take my shoes off at the advice of a small German group. On the far side, dune buggy dudes encourage me to run down to the bottom. I jump off the edge into a marginally-controlled free-fall. This is more fun than climbing on all fours up the steep dunes — punching my hands and kicking my feet into the shifting river of sand, trying not to be swept away.

At the bottom I shake sand out of my shoes, put them on, and walk off past a pond and a garden to the entrance. I bike back in the late afternoon. Sharing my spartan dorm room is Davey from Scotland. We stay up to talk and when I get to sleep I still haven’t showered.

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http://tom.spacing-guild.net/2006/06/24/enroute-to-turpan-june-19

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