7 th August : Bingling Si Grottoes

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Leaving Xiahe today back to Lanzhou to catch train to Dunhuang. But first we wanted to visit the Bingling Si grottoes, a collection of carvings and frescoes and statues from the Han and Ming Dynasty. Trusty driver roared off in usual fervour and few hrs later we were at the boat launching place on the side of the lingshuia reservoir. Into the little speed boat and a 30 min race across the waters to the remote location where 'they' discovered this amazing site. Dodging the souvenir sellers and the restaurant touts we ventured into the chasm where the frescoes were.

The caves were first cut In 420AD and continued for a thousand yrs after. There are 216 cave niches and one massive carved Buddha , about a thousand metres of mural paintings, and fifty pagodas. The Buddha is spectacular about80 feet tall, and viewed by a rickety ladder arrangement up the side.

We had a spectacular drive back from the reservoir to Lanzhou railway station where our driver excelled himself at race car manoeuvre s and dodgem driving. There was a 28 km downhill stretch where we descended about 1500 metres - we had triple passing, overtaking on blind bends whilst using the mobile phone, passing on the inside, driving in the wrong side forever ! , and all of this at 100km/hr screaming downhill !!

Finally got to Lanzhou and then endured about an hr crawling thru bumper to bumper traffic trying to get to the station - all in 38 degree heat ! It was with some relief when we finally settled into our sleeper compartment with 30 mins to spare

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