77 Days in China: Day 34: Dunhuang (敦煌)

Train in
Took a morning train to Dunhuang (敦煌) and arrived around noon via train. Slept most of the train ride, it was through the desert so luckily we didn't miss any scenery.

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Arriving in our soft sleeper train car

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Luckily while we slept this was the only view for hours

Our hotel
We were having trouble finding a hostel in Dunhuang so again we had to book a hotel. We found an amazing looking hotel, supposedly one of the best in Dunhuang, for just $22 a person and decided to treat ourselves, pulling up we were not disappointed, however finding out that our cheap room was not in the actual hotel and was a 5-8 minute walk outside to the back near the employee quarters made us disappointed and seeing our room left us more disappointment. There was nothing wrong, but it was no better then a hostel we had been paying less than half of this price for, however we did get the benefits of the complimentary breakfast at the rooftop restaurant.

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Our hotel

Day Trip
We hired a cab for 2 days to drive us around the town. The first day he brought us to some old Buddhist Caves west of town (西千佛洞). These are not the most famous, and less restored than the ones we would see the following day, the world famous Mogao grottos (莫高窟), but are actually older than Mogao. Out of mountains in the middle of the desert in this area were caves made spanning 1000 years, the earliest around 366 AD, and fantastic murals covering all the walls and ceilings as well as sculptures. At the location we went to today there were about 15 caves, which we got to see 5 of. Afterwards we went to two old gates that were along the Great wall, the South Pass (陽關) and the Jade Gate Pass (玉門關), both right outside of town. The gates and the town made a triangle in which they would communicate via smoke or fire signals. Both were far out into the desert. The South Pass was an entire reconstruction of what it looked like with a small piece of the old gate, but we went on a tour about all the reconstructions. The Jade Gate Pass was much better preserved, but there was no tour, just a gate in the middle of the desert. We also saw some very old Great Wall parts from Han Dynasty (漢長城), which is about 2000 years old. Although there wasn't much left, it was nice to see some unrestored sections. We wanted to go to a national park dedicated to a special land formation in this area (雅丹地貌), but our driver talked us out of it. He said he would bring us to the same sort of land formations as they have in the park, he then brought us to some piles of sand and said thats all they had, we will never know, but its ok because we had seen enough for the day.

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Driving to the first scenic spot

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At the totally rebuilt first gate, the South Pass (陽關)

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Outside the South Pass

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Looking at the desert from the South Pass

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What was left of a tower at the South Pass

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Driving to the Jade Gate Pass (玉門關)

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More desert

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What's left of the Jade Gate Pass was much larger

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Also it was surrounded by more desert

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The Hang Dynasty Great Wall (漢長城)

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Upclose of the Great Wall, the layered structure within the wall was visible

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Charlotte in the Desert

Night time
Got back after sunset, we grabbed some food and drink on the rooftop of our hotel which was extrememly nice. Also got some sausage wrapped in bacon which was really good. Then headed to a night market where Charlotte got some more food and I got a beer.