The Singing Sand Dunes, Mogao Caves, and catching the Night Train. Dunhuang (26 May, Sunday)

The Singing Sand Dunes
When asked what are my most vivid memories of China, I am surprised to find myself answering "The Sand Dunes". Did you ever see the 1960's classic movie "Lawrence of Arabia"? Well, these dunes remind me of that movie. The dunes are just magnificent to see. Hundreds of feet high, constantly shifting in the winds, with a magnificent 2,000 year old oasis plopped down in the middle of them.

Another vivid memory, for contrast, is that of the hundreds and hundreds of high-rise condominiums or apartments we saw in every city we visited (with the possible exception of the oasis city of Turpan). It was just beyond belief. The NY Times article of June 16, 2013 describing China's plan to move 250,000,000 million people into cities over the next 12 to 15 years helps understand what we were seeing.

And - Yes, my very first camel ride!

John Blevins, John Thomson and Shudong Chen,
mounted up, and ready to rumble...

They had hundreds of camels saddled up just for us tourists to ride up into the dunes. Surprisingly, the ride was more comfortable than expected. And the camels kneel down on their knees for our mounting and dismounting - just like in the movies...

Here's a view of the dunes as you approach from the city of Dunhuang. If you look close, you can see little specks on the sand ridge just beyond the highway. For scale, those are people on camels.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sand_dunes_(1).jpg

And here's a photo of the Crescent Lake Oasis. In the distance you can see the city of Dunhuang, which I presume developed as a result of the oasis, but I haven't done that homework yet..

Photo Courtesy of http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20110817/000cf1a48f870fb5b9b34f.jpg

I purchased a book of photos titled "Entering Xinjiang" at one of the big shops on this day. It includes a DVD video, but I've discovered I can't view it on my television, but only on our computer.

The Mogao Caves
These ancient tomb caves (over 1,000 of them) are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Located 25 kM outside Dunhuang. Access to the sites are now tightly controlled and you must be led by their guide. The caves are sealed to control humidity and to monitor CO2 levels (as generated by human visitors). When the CO2 level gets too high, they close that cave to access for some period of time.
Each cave contains elaborate ritual figures and paintings used in reverence.

From wikipedia:

The Mogao Caves or Mogao Grottoes, also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas form a system of 492 temples 25 km (16 mi) southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis strategically located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China. The caves may also be known as the Dunhuang Caves, however, this term is also used to include other Buddhist cave sites in the Dunhuang area, such as the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, and the Yulin Caves farther away. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years.[1] The first caves were dug out in 366 CE as places of Buddhist meditation and worship.[2]The Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes andYungang Grottoes, are one of the three famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China.

An important cache of documents was discovered in 1900 in the so-called "Library Cave," which had been walled-up in the 11th century. The content of the library was dispersed around the world, and the largest collections are now found in Beijing, London, Paris and Berlin, and the International Dunhuang Project exists to coordinate and collect scholarly work on the Dunhuang manuscripts and other material. The caves themselves are now a popular tourist destination, with a number open for visiting.