Blogs from Dunhuang, Gansu, China, Asia

A big day today so no breakfast, our guide was here at 08.20 and by 9.00 we were in the theatre of the Dunhuang Caves World Heritage Site pre-visit centre (aka “Mogao Grottoes”). The place was packed, maybe 300 people? Visitors are limited to 3,000 per day, to protect the site. The first film was very Chinese, lots of violence and horses thundering around, but it gave a picture of life as it would have been since the period of the Warring States. We then all moved to a planetarium-style theatre, where you seemed to be moving through a series of the actual caves as the art and history was explained (headphones for English translation); a “virtual reality” experience as if one had super-powers to get close and personal with lofty ceilings etc. An excellent introduction, ... read more

A brief outline of the dull bit: arose as planned at 05.20 for 06.00 start, to travel 475 miles, estimated 15hr journey. Went straight to bed on arrival, climbed in at 05.18. No breakfast, lunch or dinner at all! Pretty stressful day. However, we travelled through amazing scenery. The first section, via Miran, Donglik and Bashkorgan to Huatuguo, led first across a lengthy plain, seemingly pure white sandy desert but in the dark! In daylight we began to climb through beautiful, warm, rounded bare rock mountain scenery, with a mostly frozen river trace running beside us; in summer it must be spectacular, flowing in full flood. We climbed to reach 7,500 feet by 1pm, where there was a police throatpoint. The scene at that point, sadly, beggared belief – the filth and chaos was simply indescribable, ... read more

Hi All, I must say it was worth the trip all the way out here. The Mogao caves were something else. Getting a ticket wasn't the easiest of tasks, finding someone with correct information wasn't easy. I got a ticket through a travel agency but there were only tickets for non Chinese, Chinese tickets were booked up for 2 months!! The caves are easy to get to with the bus for the train station taking people there. Once inside the visitor centre I watched two films, one of the story of Dunhuang and the caves and another showing the inside of the caves. After the films it is a 5 minute ride on a coach to the caves themselves. There was only two English speaking visitors so we had a quite intimate experience. Our guide took ... read more

Dunhuang city is not very much appealing if it was not for the stunning sights you can discover around it. I arrived there after a long trip by train from Langzhou. One of those stunning and marvellous places is the so called Crescent Moon Lake. The Crescent Moon Lake is a beautiful oasis in the desert, surrounded by numerous sand dunes. I was awestruck by the size of those sund dunes that reached the oustanding height of 250 meters and to the bottom of those enormous dunes lied that tiny lake and a beautiful pagoda. A pagoda in traditional Han Chinese architecture, but not very much authentic as it was surrounded by souvenir stalls and hordes of tourists besieging the place that took well off that magical ambiance that would otherwise encase the entire area. I ... read more

Dunhuang was never on our original itinerary, infact we had never even heard of it before arriving in China. We only heard or rather seen pictures of it from our Korean dorm mate back in Xingping. As he swiped through pictures of this desert - A desert. In China!! - clear blue skies, standing on a mountain of sand with what looked like an oasis in the background. We were in awe, China's diverse scenery never fails to amaze. We said to ourselves "maybe we could squeeze this in our itinerary somehow" We couldn't believe our luck, looking at the map of China it actually seemed possible. A reroute here, take a day off there, we were going to the desert. Roll on the 23 hour train ride. Side note: 23 hours on a train is ... read more