Not Just Desert

Mingsha Mountains

Following the Silk Road east from Xinjiang (travelling by plane this time, faster than train, MUCH faster than traditional camel), I stopped at Dunhuang in the northern tip of Gansu province. On the outskirts of town, you can see exactly where the desert meets this oasis town in spectacular fashion.

View from the top

The Minghsa, or Singing Sands, Mountains aren't proper mountains at all but massive sand dunes, some stretching over a mile high. Walking to the top of one of them, as your intrepid but terribly unfit reporter did with the help of a long buried rope ladder, is exhilarating if exhausting.

Camels for the weary

Ever entrepreneurial, local businesses offer plenty of ways to explore the dunes without actually walking them. You can ride a camel or drive an ATV up the dunes, then toboggan or even paraglide back down. I decided to save the money and use my feeble legs instead. I'm still finding sand in my sneakers.

Mogao Ku

The dunes are impressive, but the most amazing sights in this area are actually man-made. The Mogao Ku contain hundreds of Buddhist statues and frescoes, painstakingly carved and painted in caves about 15 miles from Dunhuang.

51 ft long sleeping Buddha

The first cave was reportedly founded in AD 366 by a monk who saw a vision of a thousand Buddhas bathed in light on the cliffs by the Dachuan River. For the next thousand years, caravans travelling the silk road would detour to pray at the site, which kept growing thanks to sponsorship of new caves by local traders and officials.

A Bodhisattva and Ananda Lokapala

I'm not an art cognoscente by any stretch, but even an amateur can appreciate this extraordinary collection. There are minutely detailed ceiling decorations showing dragons chasing a phoenix and flying buddhist angels circling lotus flowers. There are huge frescoes of almost identical Buddhas, like hand-painted wall paper. There are entire village scenes with mythical stories played out in giant murals. And sculptors even managed, within the caves themselves, to carve some of the world's biggest Buddhas out of the cliff.

Part of the story of 500 bandits becoming Buddhas

According to Unesco, the 492 preserved caves "comprise the largest, most richly endowed, and longest used treasure house of Buddhist art in the world". Tourists aren't allowed to take photos, to save the artwork from flash-photography denigration, so all of the art pictures on this blog are from postcards. The Dunhuang Academy website has the best and most comprehensive collection of photographs here.

Apsaras and lotus flowers on the ceiling