Despite its remoteness in the middle of the desert, per capita income in Dūnhuáng is among the highest in China, thanks to a recent push into wind and solar energy production (sorry, but I just HAVE to mention this..). The town is now thoroughly modern, but compared to other places, it has maintained its distinction and a really nice atmosphere. With clean tree-lined streets, slow-moving traffic, bustling markets, nice cafes and some souvenir shops, it also has remained as much an oasis for travellers as in the Silk Road times.
The visit of the Mogao caves was certainly so far one of the highlights of this trip. From the originally 1000 caves, about 500 still exist and despite their age, some of them are quite well preserved, due to the hot and dry climate and the fact that for about 500 years they had been covered by sand and forgotten. As soon as they were rediscovered, the problems started. A number of Western explorers (or I should rather say thiefs) came here between 1904 (a Brit) and 1925 (an Amercian), with French, Japanese and a Russian following and plundered the caves by detaching some of the mural paintings and steeling (more correctly, they "bought" them for ridiculous amounts from the monk guarding them), the manuscripts and silk paintings which had been discovered in an amazing cave library, amongst which the oldest print in the world. Most of them are now in possession of the Louvre and Musée Guimet in Paris, the British Museum in London and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The museum here contains only a very sad number of low quality manuscripts and copies of their originals.
The decoration of the caves is really extraordinary: various Buddhas (in all shapes and forms - painted and as statues) and paintings telling stories to relate the message of Buddhism to the simple people. Actually exactly the same, somehow, then the paintings in Cappadocia's cave churches at the beginning of my trip in Turkey.
When I bought the entry ticket (which is scandalously expensive with 20€ (same price for Chinese tourists!!), the lady told me that due to the extremely high number of Chinese visitors, their "leader" had told them to cancel all guided tours in English in favour of Chinese ones. That was a blow because you need a certain level of explanation to understand what is depicted in the murals. I was now very happy that I had carried my one kilo DuMont cultural guide with me all the time as it contained a 12-page chapter on the caves with a detailed explanation of what you can see in some of the various caves. Instead of guided tours, they also put the guides inside the caves and pushed the masses of Chinese tourists from one cave to the next in maximum speed, the open caves being marked with blue and green flags. I followed the flow as the guides had very powerful torches to show the various paintings and statues in the dark caves, so I could actually see the stuff... My torch was too weak to see a lot of things. But i always stayed until after the groups had left and before the next one was let in, which allowed me to look at things without rushing and in some caves, the guides actually gave me some explanation in English as well. They were quite surprised by the level of detailed description in my guidebook.
In the afternoon, I went to visit the dunes, for which Dunhuang is famous. I know I also had to pay another ridiculously high entrance fee here, but I did not expect this kind of "circus". They basically turned this nice wonder of nature into a kitschy Dune Disneyland, with a huge visitor's centre, a kind of shopping mall, a stage for shows, etc. and there were amazing amounts of tourists (almost exclusively Chinese..), all of them wanting to go for a camel ride up the dunes and there are actually enough camels for all of them, which provoked a "traffic jam" on the way up to the dunes (see photo). Whereas most people only went onto the first lower dune, I decided to escape the masses and climb up to the top of the highest dune. The climb to the top of the dunes – the highest peak swells to 1715m – was sweaty work even if it was already around 19.00, but the view across the desert sands makes it really worth while. The view from the dune was spectacular and here were only 3 other young Chinese guys who made it up to hear, so it was wonderfully silent. Exactly the right atmosphere to watch the sunset.
Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65M7GFPGaJ7eb
The visit of the Mogao caves was certainly so far one of the highlights of this trip. From the originally 1000 caves, about 500 still exist and despite their age, some of them are quite well preserved, due to the hot and dry climate and the fact that for about 500 years they had been covered by sand and forgotten. As soon as they were rediscovered, the problems started. A number of Western explorers (or I should rather say thiefs) came here between 1904 (a Brit) and 1925 (an Amercian), with French, Japanese and a Russian following and plundered the caves by detaching some of the mural paintings and steeling (more correctly, they "bought" them for ridiculous amounts from the monk guarding them), the manuscripts and silk paintings which had been discovered in an amazing cave library, amongst which the oldest print in the world. Most of them are now in possession of the Louvre and Musée Guimet in Paris, the British Museum in London and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The museum here contains only a very sad number of low quality manuscripts and copies of their originals.
The decoration of the caves is really extraordinary: various Buddhas (in all shapes and forms - painted and as statues) and paintings telling stories to relate the message of Buddhism to the simple people. Actually exactly the same, somehow, then the paintings in Cappadocia's cave churches at the beginning of my trip in Turkey.
When I bought the entry ticket (which is scandalously expensive with 20€ (same price for Chinese tourists!!), the lady told me that due to the extremely high number of Chinese visitors, their "leader" had told them to cancel all guided tours in English in favour of Chinese ones. That was a blow because you need a certain level of explanation to understand what is depicted in the murals. I was now very happy that I had carried my one kilo DuMont cultural guide with me all the time as it contained a 12-page chapter on the caves with a detailed explanation of what you can see in some of the various caves. Instead of guided tours, they also put the guides inside the caves and pushed the masses of Chinese tourists from one cave to the next in maximum speed, the open caves being marked with blue and green flags. I followed the flow as the guides had very powerful torches to show the various paintings and statues in the dark caves, so I could actually see the stuff... My torch was too weak to see a lot of things. But i always stayed until after the groups had left and before the next one was let in, which allowed me to look at things without rushing and in some caves, the guides actually gave me some explanation in English as well. They were quite surprised by the level of detailed description in my guidebook.
In the afternoon, I went to visit the dunes, for which Dunhuang is famous. I know I also had to pay another ridiculously high entrance fee here, but I did not expect this kind of "circus". They basically turned this nice wonder of nature into a kitschy Dune Disneyland, with a huge visitor's centre, a kind of shopping mall, a stage for shows, etc. and there were amazing amounts of tourists (almost exclusively Chinese..), all of them wanting to go for a camel ride up the dunes and there are actually enough camels for all of them, which provoked a "traffic jam" on the way up to the dunes (see photo). Whereas most people only went onto the first lower dune, I decided to escape the masses and climb up to the top of the highest dune. The climb to the top of the dunes – the highest peak swells to 1715m – was sweaty work even if it was already around 19.00, but the view across the desert sands makes it really worth while. The view from the dune was spectacular and here were only 3 other young Chinese guys who made it up to hear, so it was wonderfully silent. Exactly the right atmosphere to watch the sunset.
Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65M7GFPGaJ7eb
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