Advertisement
JIAYUGUAN
GREAT WALL Dunhuang welcomed us with a bang, literally, they had fireworks lit up soon as we entered the hotel's carpark, it was funny. Seems like a nice place at night looks like a mini Las Vagas with all the lights in the main street well lit up. Visited the impressive Magao Caves, unfortunately we can't take photos inside the caves , it is also called the Thousand Buddha Caves located at the eastern foothills of the Mingsha Mountains 25 kms southeast of Dunhuang, construction of these caves bagan in the second year of Jianyuan during the former Qin Dynasty 366 AD. There are 735 existing caves of various shapes and contains some 45,000 sq. m. of murals in area and 2400 painted sculptures, it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We had our first glimpse of the Great Wall in Jiayuguan, we camped at our first campsite caled Shinguan Gorge Suspending Wall, quite cheesy as it looks like a theme park. We camped for 2 days while visiting the western edge of the Wall. Lots of mosquitoes, yukky toilet, if I havent mentioned anything about toilets here in China, probably now is the time, you can get used
JIAYUGUAN
GREAT WALL to the squat type but the smell on some of them is really repulsive,I learned to breathe through my mouth or better yet just use the spade that we have on the truck and find a private place to do your business.
From there we drove to Zhangye to see the reclining Clay Buddha but to our dissapointment it is being renovated/repaired, lots of scaffolding around, cant even take photos inside. Then stopped for our last bush camping in Hexibao, sad thing to say goodbye to my tent but only for awhile, the Beijing to St. Pete will see us camping again.
DUNHUANG:
Dunhuang lies at the western end of the Hexi Corridor in Gansu Province in Northwest China, an oasis on the eastern edge of Taklimakan Desert. It is nourished by melted snow water from the Qilian Mountains. The ancient town used to be an important stop-over point on the Silk Road. The name "Dunhuang" was given in the Han Dynasty. In Chinese "Dun" means grandness and " Huang" means prosperity. In the 2nd century B.C. Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty sent imperial envoy Zhang Qian to the Western Regions, opening up a trade
route which was to be known as the "Silk Road" in history. The imperial court set up Dunhuang Prefecture in A.D. 111 and Dunhuang became a strategic town. Through this route Chinese culture and products, especially silk, were introduced to European and Middle East countries, and foreign culture and products such as Buddhism of India came to central China. Much of Buddhism is propagated through artistic forms, which were soon assimilated into the Chinese traditional culture. The result was that many Buddhist images were carved in caves in mountain cliffs along the Silk Road. Many of them have been well preserved. The best are those at Mogao in Dunhuang.
The Dunhuang Grotto Art is composed of the Cave and Yulin Grottos in Anxi. Carving of the Mogao Grottos, commonly known as 1,000- Buddha Caves, began in AD 366 and continued through a dozen dynasties including the Northern Liang , Northern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Zhou, Sui, Tang, Five-Dynasties Period, Song, Huihe, Western Xia and Yuan. The extant 492 caves preserve more than 2, 000 color statues and 45,000 square meters of murals. The mural themes depict Buddha portraits, stories and interpretations of Buddhist scriptures, Buddhist history, legends, portraits of
dunhuang
MAGAO CAVES devotees and various decorative patterns. They describe different ethnic groups, people's lives such as nobles' outings, singing, dancing and music, farming, fishing and hunting, acrobatics and martial art practice, foreign envoys and merchants on the Silk Road. Some scholars liken these murals to a "library on the wall". In the early 20th century some 50,000 pieces of cultural relics were found in the Scripture-Keeping Cave including handwritten documents and more than 1,000 pieces of silk painting, graphic painting, embroidery and calligraphy. Put together the art works would form a 25-kilometer-long art gallery.
The Mogao Grottos were dug in loose sedimentary conglomerate of the the Quaternary Period. Some parts collapsed in earthquakes. But the dry weather has preserved the basic outlook of the cliffs. In the 1940s the Dunhuang Art Research Institute was established at Mogao. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the new government began an overall repair and reinforcement project on 39 caves, saving 1,800 square meters of murals and 200 color statues. The Western 1,000-Buddha Cave and Yulin Grottos at Anxi have been public after renovation. Grottos in Dunhuang are a national treasure of China and a cultural heritage of the world. In 1962
dunhuang
MAGAO CAVES the State Council put them among China's first key cultural relics under state protection and in 1991 the UNESCO put them on its list of world natural and cultural heritages. This album includes the best works representing different historical periods with brief introductions.
Dunhuang Oasis at the western end of the Hexi Corridor was the terminal of the eastern section of the Silk Road (from Chang'an to Dunhuang) and the starting point of the middle section of the Silk Road (from Dunhuang to Congling). An administration was set up at Dunhuang in A.D. 111. Today this tourist destination attracts people with its tourist destination attracts people with its numerous historic sites such as Yumenguan Pass, ruins of Yangguan Pass, Wuwa Pond, Sanwei Mountain, Ringing-Sand Hill, Crescent-Moon Pool and the many grotto carvings and murals. The Ringing-sand Area is one of China's key tourist attractions.
The Western Thousand Buddha Cave
The western one thousand Buddhas cave is located on the bluff on the north bank of Dang River, 33 kilometers to the southwest of Dunhuang City. 22 existent caves were built in Northern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Zhou, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties, and Song Dynasties. They contain 910
dunhuang
MAGAO CAVES square meters of frescos, 53 color statues. As a result of wash by the flow of the river, the bank has collapsed; many caves have only rear half.
The One-Thousand Buddha Cave is an important component of Dunhuang art. Although most of them have been rehabilitated, they preserve part or most part of the original caves. Although only a few caves survive, they have their own features. Some people reckon that the original caves would be far more than the existent ones, but for being washed by the river, the bluff could not be completely preserved. Here are deep valley and dense forests-the environment is quiet. It can be called a "paradise outside the secular world". In 1961, the Cave was listed as national protected cultural relic, and was put under the jurisdiction of Dunhuang Cultural Relic Research Institute.
JIAYUGUAN:
Jiayuguan,a recently developing industrial city of iron-steel production, is located in the middle of Hexi Corridor, Gansu. It is rich in tourist resources and there are many renowned places of historic interest and scenic beauty, namely, the Jiayuguan Pass the other attractions include. First Peacon Tower, Overhanging Great Wall, Heishan rock carvings, brick-painted graves of Wei
dunhuang
MAGAO CAVES and Jin periods as well as Qiyi Glacier and other natural scenes.
The main reason for visiting this remote outpost in Gansu (for most tourists) is a visit to the Fort, that guards the pass (Jiayuguan), that gives this city its name. This bastion was the last main fortification of the western end of the Great Wall and is strategically located at a crucial section for those traveling the Silk Road. This was the last major stop for merchants and travelers wishing to move on to Dunhuang, the wilder recesses of Xinjiang and beyond.
Aside from Beijing, Jiayuguan is one of the best places to visit the Great Wall, especially interesting here for its percipitousness and cold, winding beauty. The best place near to the city is the Overhanging Great Wall, a section of both comfortable flat and tiringly oblique surfaces, a mere 8 kilometers from the city center. For those really interested, there is also a Great Wall Museum in town that provides a fairly comprehensive look at the history and development of the wall through pictures and documents, unfortunately all in Chinese. This is still a good way to get a look at the town, with some
JIAYUGUAN
GREAT WALL great views to be had from the roof of the museum.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.506s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0231s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb