October 11th
0km
Our second double-rest day of the trip, so we got to play tourist again.
Started in the Mogao Caves, a world heritage site with hundreds of small Buddhist temples carved into Sanwei Mountain. They were built from the 4th to the 14th century by travelers seeking Buddha's protection as they left China along the Silk Road. The largest cave had an unbelievable 35m tall Buddha inside. (Walking in through a narrow hallway, at first we only saw a gray wall...which turned out to be the Buddha's big toe.) I was excited to visit secret cave 17, where the Indiana Jones characters from “Foreign Devils on the Silk Road” made their greatest discovery of ancient artifacts - including the world's oldest printed document (from 868AD). Although it was a bit repetitious by the end of the tour, the carvings and intricate paintings were really amazing. The exterior of the caves has been reinforced for safety in a horrible concrete style...a sharp contrast to the wonders inside.
After a great family-style lunch at a local restaurant, we visited Dun Huang's sand dunes. I had no idea how big sand dunes were – hundreds of feet tall! After riding through the flat, rocky desert for so long it was nice to experience a “proper” desert with soft sand and huge dunes. I rented a camel to ride around, climbed to the top of the tallest dune and then ran down...filling my shoes with sand.
The entire cliff wall had tiny cave doors on it. This was the one large, elaborate structure:
No camera's allowed in the temples, but this is a photo of a postcard showing the type of Buddha carvings we saw.
Camels are much bigger than they look:
Now THIS is REAL desert:
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