silk road

Dunhaung - Magao Grottoes

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lets say you are a Buddist and you just croosed the Gobi desert and arrived at Dunhuang what do you do? you give a donation to the local artist to thank for the safe passage. so the Magao Caves are one of the largest deposotary of Buddist artwork in the world from the start of buddahism in China (5th centrury) to the collaps of the silk road (~1600AD).

Dunhaung - Magao Grottoes

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there are hundreds of caves full of artwork. we had a good guide so the artwork even made some sense to us. luckly for whomever that reads this blog we were not allowed to take photos in the cave so we will not bother you with what we found inside :)

Dunhaung - Magao Grottoes

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still a couple of stolen photos might intrest someone no?

Toyuq

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50km from Turpan there is a small village we visited called Toyuq

Toyuq

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Hagit exploring the village

Toyuq

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the village has a famous mosque and mazar. when the silk road was operating people belived the 7 visits here is equal to one HAJ to Mecca. we talked to a person living in the villag. he is saving money to go to Mecca (~2500USD). he will have it in 10-15years so when he is 50 he will go...

Toyuq

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the roof of the Mazar

Toyuq

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near the village are budhist caves from the 7-10th ceturies but the insides are not perserved becasue they were destoried in Mao's "cultural revolotion" in the 60's. the river is part of a huge canal system the brings water to the village from the montains hundreds of kms away

Tuyuq

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the village (like Turpan) is surrounded by grape vines. if it was not for the heat (it was 39deg in the shade but where is the shade?) and the mud houses insted of Chatues then we could have been in France

Tuyuq

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view of Tuyuq

Tuyuq

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now the story - when we walked in the village a man coming in the path in front of us was whisteling the music of the song "LIVLEVO AGAS VEGAM TAPUACH"!!! we started to whistel along with him. at fisrt he thought we were just lucky with a few notes but when he finished (he already passed us by 100m) he called us and gave us 2 melons for free! we sat in the shade in front of a house to eat them. the owner of the house invited us in to eatthem under his fan with some bread and tea. we decided we liked Tuyoq people. we also got a free ride back to Turpan from there so it was a cheap day :). BTW - Turpan is the 2nd lowest place in the world so Yaron took extra care to wear his Dead Sea T-Shirt during our stay ;)

Turpan - Emin Minrat

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Turpan has a one of the oldest and nicest mosques in China

Turpan - Emin Minrat

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it is one of those stuctures you can't stop photographing

Turpan - Emin Minrat

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it is 33m high and 10m in diameter

Turpan - Emin Minrat

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built in 1777

Turpan - Emin Minrat

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Hagit resting on the roof

Turpan - Flaming mountains

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the mountains near Turpan a famous in China from beeing the hottest place in China. the mountain look as if they are on fire.

Turpan

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In the evening we went to see a local folklore show.

Turpan

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the locals are Uygurs. They are a kind of Turkemistan. The influence is very Central Asian and the language is a dialict of Turkish. The signs are written in arabic fonts although there is no connection to arabic. the Chinnese changes the writting from Latin letters becasue it gave the locals an advantage in learning English.

Turpan

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local people.

Turpan

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local people. the side streets in Turpan are shaded with grape-vines