Advertisement
Published: June 18th 2017
Edit Blog Post
Geo: 40.15, 94.68
Mingsha Hill which is known as one of the 8 Great Landscapes” of Dunhuang. It's also known as the Singing Sand Dunes.
Supposedly a war between two armies ended here and the troops where buried by strong winds and their cries still echo from the mountains.
From far away the looked huge and almost like they had been man made.
The fine edge of the dunes seemed so fine like it had been cut like a knife with great precision but in actual fact when you got closer to the edge, it was about one meter wide and you could see all of the peoples footsteps.
We jumped onto camels and we started our trek into the sand dunes. The camels all had there bell and a pretty carpet on their back with a very odd wooden saddle.
Off we rode all in line.
We came to a ladder that was on the sand dune. We had to climb up. The kids didn't want to use it and they stared walking up the dune. Well, they took one step and their foot sang into the sand and they didn't move at all. They continued trying but it was no use. They all scrambled across
to the ladder shortly after.
It was an amazing view from the top of the Dune. All you could see was lots of sand. If you stood too close on this edge you would start a sand avalanche that went a long way down.
On the way back the kids slid down the dune with the aid of a sack. They really did collect some speed.
All of our shoes where filled with sand and so where our pockets.
We took the camels back down and then on to Cresent Moon Spring which is a natural lake the has never dried up due to its landform and its continuous source of underground water.
This place was amazing. Really in the middle of no where there was a temple right by the lake. Two of the men decided to go up in a light aircraft to see the area. They said it was great and the photos where cool.
We dropped off our camels and the boys decided that we needed a special souvenir of the Gobi Desert. “How about a Camel Bell?”
So between the 4 of them they spoke for a while, they bartered, laughed, smiled, tried all of their chinese. I'm pretty sure they
didn't to sell them and they probably need them.
Finally the owner said yes. The boys where very proud of their camel bells, but they where very smelly.
At least we all had a brilliant souvenir of the trip.
We then headed off to the Mogao Caves. These caves are all on the side of a hill and are filled with Buddhist art and manuscripts. There are so many tiny caves and then very large caves filled with murals.
We visited about 15 altogether. We couldn't take photos inside of the caves but it really was amazing.
That night we headed back on the over night train back to Lauzhou.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.154s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0533s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb