Dunhuang

I imagine Dunguang to be a dusty frontier town with a wild west feel, instead I am surprised by wide tree lined boulevards, fancy shops and immaculately kept streets. It is one of the most pleasant Chinese cities I have visited, yet for three months of every year according to one cafe owner, it is wracked by sand storms making it a hard place to live. After our arrival we head for the much vaunted night market for dinner. Despite a disturbing touristy feel to it the selection of food options is large and authentic. Donkey meat and noodles are the Dunhuang speciality but we are already sold on the Kashgari Kebabs. Despite asking for only a little chilli, the barbecued mutton pieces, cauliflower and bread all come liberally covered in the stuff. Once again we are victims of the relativity of perspective, the amount of chilli the chain smoking chef must normally have on his kebabs has me in total awe. On the menu I notice a sheep’s head for 25 Yuan. Jude is very keen to watch me eat one but point blank refuses to join in. On my own I feel reluctant, times like this call for partners in crime, after all there are two eyeballs in every sheep’s head… I defer for now but feel sure I will not escape China without following through, like some desperately hard caving trip I feel it is something I would like to have done even though I might not actually enjoy it at the time.

By taxi we head in the opposite direction to the tourist treadmill of the Mogao Caves and pass through yet more bleak desert on our way towards the Western Buddhist Caves. As we pull into the car park, which is nothing more than a specially flattened area of rock and dust, I feel my hopes rising, there is only one other car. A set of stairs descends to the bottom of a river gorge carved out of the soft conglomerate of river cobbles and dust that form the desert floor. In a pretty stand of rustling poplar trees a small port-a-cabin stands empty, behind a man sits on a park bench whilst talking into his mobile phone. He gestures for us to wait. A puppy bounds playfully in a small ditch to our right, it appears to be the only other living thing here. We are sold two tickets and a guide appears from deeper within the trees.

I am no connoisseur of Buddhist art and have not visited Mogao Caves so can not compare the qualities of the two side by side. I have been to a lot of Buddhist Monasteries in Tibet and the artwork was definitely better, if not older, there. A few sculptures of Buddha and his mates and a bunch of murals is no longer and unfamiliar site. As a connoisseur of caves I can tell you that these caves are definitely more than rock shelters but really only consist of one or two rooms and being man made they don’t qualify for my full appreciation. I am very glad that we didn’t pay through the nose then to visit Mogao, if the artwork and caves do not do it for you then only one thing remains and that is the atmosphere of the place as a whole. There is not a single souvenir stall here, we are the only visitors and after the short tour finishes we are allowed to wander unaccompanied up the gorge. With nothing but the sound of the wind rustling through the trees and a lone cuckoos call it is easy to contemplate the history of this place. The monks that lived here as early as 300AD must have led a brutally austere life. One made possible only by their devout beliefs and pious work carving and painting caves. This sense remains today with the caves current guardians. A small group of government workers and their wives live here semi-permenantly as the caretakers and guardians of the past. Their sacrifices in living such a lonely existence out here in the desert are analogous to those who went before them. The circle is complete, the tranquility and isolation perfect, how can Mogao Caves be a patch on a place this wholly evocative. With it’s souvenir supermarkets and and conveyor belt tour I doubt you’d get the same sense of place as is found here.

Later in the day we go to the Singing Dunes to the south of the city. These are the largest sand dunes in China and they are huge, proper Lawrence of Arabia stuff. Sadly the Chinese authorities have been busy here too and no it is the site of a grotesque “adrenalin park” where you can ride camels or go quad-biking, dune surfing and paragliding, all for an additional fee of course and never too far from another tacky souvenir stall. Giddy tourists wander about in ridiculous orange overboots intended to keep the sand out, I’m positive hiring those must come at an extra charge and sadly it prevents that most childish of pleasures, what is the point of playing on sand dunes if you are not going to get sand in your shoes, where is the fun in that? The 120 yuan entrance fee has me gobsmacked and we follow the guide books advice and go in search of the end of the fence instead. A twenty minute walk later and we are standing at the bottom of a very large, very unfenced and very untouristed mountain of sand. The climb is hard, three steps up two steps back. We persevere for a good hour, perhaps more. Walk for a bit then rest some. When the wind blows it sends great clouds of biting sand swirling around us forcing us to turn away and bury our faces in our scarves. After an age we stand above the “Adrenalin Park”, above Dunhuang and the surrounding desert, victorious in our ascent and in the avoidance of scandalous entrance fees. Only one last thing remains… We charge like lunatics down the side of the dune covering several metres with each bound. Plumes of sand erupt as my feet plunge deep into the soft slope and then flick out and forwards to catch my next leap down. “Woooohooooo!” I drop to my knees and slide the final couple of metres to the bottom, panting heavily with the effort. What took us over an hour to climb takes us less the twenty seconds to descend. I savour the rush of endorphins triggered by such a puerile act, if only they had a dune lift to take us back to the top, perhaps they do inside the “Adrenalin Park”?