China 2008 >

Dunhuang is the home of the Mogao Caves, a huge complex of little rooms with well-preserved paintings. It's also not too far from Yadan National Park, which is somewhat like Monument Valley.

(click photo to see larger version)

They don't let you take pictures inside the caves. They've built doorways in front of each one, and our tour visited ten of them.

Here are some more caves that haven't been made accessible to tourists.

There are lots of murals around town, this one made out of tile.

A map of China which has had some tiles replaced, and perhaps some assembled wrong.

Our trip out to Yadan started at Yumenguan Gate, once part of the Great Wall.

Here's another part of the Han Dynasty-era Great Wall, protected by a fence. The Great Wall didn't used to need a fence to protect it; but tourists are a bigger danger than Manchus or Mongols.

It looks like it's made out of layers of straw and mud.

The information poster at the Yadan visitor center. In Turistia there is never left open a doubt as to how you are to regard your experiences.

Imagine Capitol Reef or somewhere in Utah, getting filled up halfway with sand. This is what this place looks like. Or Glen Canyon. You could have sandboats pulling sand skiers.

A sphinx and a pyramid. Somewhere on flickr there must be a compilation of everything that looks like Sphinxes and Pyramids, including actual cats.

Looks like an African or New Guinean sculpture.

Clouds provide interesting illumination.  More pictures of monuments...

On the way back to Dunhuang, our guide took us to the ruins of Hecang Town, an ancient walled city with much of the wall intact.

Not to belabor the point, but this place was once as promising as Cupertino, and the people confident of the future, and Health Care.

The fun part was stopping at the caretaker's house -- she's a friend of the taxi driver. She grows lots of plants, and has a well.

The bark on one of her trees.

Her brooms.

Another attraction at Dunhuang is Crescent Lake and Echoing-Sand Mountain, some large sand dunes. It is quite touristy and expensive.  Hanging out at the dunes...

On our last day, we went to another Great Wall gate, Yangguan Gate, which had a brand new visitor center and guided tours. Here our names were put on a "passport" like those used in the gates' heyday.

The gate itself.

A much smaller cave site, the Western Thousand-Buddhas cave, had many interesting paintings. Kiyoshe, the guy on the left, is a French TV producer and was the first person we'd met who'd come to China to see the Olympics. He spoke fluent Chinese and interpreted into English for us, and into Japanese for his friend.

A mannequin in a store near our hotel.

The brand new monumental train station. Infrastructure 'r' us. We got on the train, and the next morning we were in Urumqi.

On to "Urumqi"