Mingsha Dunes

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For the past four months, we've been living at the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, a small city located at the edge of the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in Northwest China. The Grottoes were first carved around the 4th century CE, purportedly by the Buddhist monk Yuezun, who saw a vision of a thousand buddhas at a cliffside near the oasis in Dunhuang. For over 1,000 years, Buddhists, powerful local rulers, and wealthy patrons carved out and decorated nearly 500 different caves into the cliffside at Mogao. This ended around the 14th century, likely due to foreign armies encroaching into the area. In 1900 an Hungarian-born "archaeologist" discovered a hidden library at Mogao, which contained thousands of ancient texts and manuscripts, including the earliest printed book in history, the Diamond Sutra.

Danny has been teaching English to tour guides and reception staff at the Dunhuang Academy, as well as conducting research at the Grottoes in preparation for his doctoral dissertation. Mercedes recently completed her TESOL certification and has been teaching English in Dunhuang city at the Silk Road Dunhuang Hotel. After four months of living and working in China, we are ready to embark on a month-long backpacking trip across China with stops in Xi'an to see the famous Terracotta Warriors; Chengdu in Sichuan province to see some pandas and the Leshan Buddha, and of course to eat some ridiculously spicy food; Guilin to take in the beautiful Karst mountain scenery and hike the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces; Hong Kong, where we will meet up with Mercedes's parents and experience Hong Kong culture; Shanghai, where we will try not to catch bird flu; Beijing, where Danny's mom will join us and we'll hike the Great Wall; and finally ending out trip in Taiwan. We'll be heading back to the US on May 27th and hope to keep our friends and family updated on our travels as they happen.

Our trip starts April 25th, but for now we have some amazing pictures to share from our hike up the Mingsha Sand Dunes in Dunhuang. Yesterday we headed to the dunes around 7 pm, at which point we met up with some of Danny's students to climb the dunes. Most people climb the dunes during the day, but we were advised by our local friends that the trek is much more enjoyable once the sun begins to set. Once you enter the dune area, you can either choose to climb up them on your own or hire a local camel to take you up. We splurged on a camel ride, and it was totally worth it! The camels here are bactrian camels, so we had to sit in between the two humps. Definitely interesting. We rode up the dunes as the sun was setting and took some great pictures. After the camels dropped us off near the peak, we hiked the rest of the way up the tallest sand dune. No matter how much you exercise, you WILL be out of breath once you reach the top. It seems like we could never make progress hiking up the sand! But eventually we made it, and the views were beautiful. Our camels then took us back to the Crescent Moon Lake, where we met up with our friends again. We walked around the lake for a bit and then hiked up another dune, again seriously testing our fitness level. By the time we reached the top, it was completely dark and you could see the lights of the whole city from the top. After resting and enjoying the cool breeze and talking with friends for a while, we hiked back down in just a few minutes. Much easier!

So enjoy our pictures for now, and we'll post again from the road after we reach Xi'an.

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Photos

Camels!
Yay!

Sunset at the peak
From the highest point of the dunes.

Mingsha Dunes
The view of the dunes from the road.

More dunes.

From the camel ride.

Mogao in winter
The northern part of the cliffside, less decorated, from our first month here.