Caravaning West

Caravaning West

After a week of abdicating most minor decisions to my new Chinese speaking friends, I was once again on my own and totally lost in translation. I shouldn't say totally since I've picked up a bit of Chinese. I can now ask for directions. Unfortunately, I won't understand the answer. I don't actually mind the helplessness, it's funny at times and a good lesson in trust. But at times it does lead to adventures.

The goal for my first day on my own was to visit the mountainside monastery some two hours from where I stayed. It was a struggle from the get go as the tax driver charged three times the actual price to get me to the bus station. Fortunately, I knew the price and when he said 12, I paid four, we were both happy. The next bus, supposedly every half hour, wasn't to leave for an hour and when it did we went five minutes before stopping for an additional hour to find more passengers. From the book, I learned to take the bus to a small town, some seven km from the monastery where frequent minibuses shuttle back and forth to. Small town was an understatement as this village didn't have more than twenty houses by Chinese standards this place is nonexistent, there was no minibus to be found and it turned out to be twenty km away. There didn't seem to be anything around. Yet with little hesitation I hoped off as the bus driver gesticulated this as my destination. By this time it was already mid-afternoon and I didn't want to be stranded here. So I walked through the neighboring hills. Accompanied only by the buzzing of cicadas and the distant howling of dogs, I was by myself in the middle of the high desert, totally lost. It was great, much more enjoyable than the monastery for sure. Surrounded by dirt fields, a blue blue sky, snow capped mountains, I really enjoyed this time of being in the middle of nowhere.

That experience was replicated a few days later in Jayaguan. the only reason to visit this dusty little desert town is to see the fort, which was located at the western point of the Chinese Empire. It was nice, but like many of the other sites here, too much theme park, not enough history. I was tempted to pay the dollar to defend the fort from attackers by shooting arrows down from the wall at a straw man. And I was really hooping that a tourist would try their luck firing a cannon juts outside the fort's gate. Who owns a cannon? And how did they get it? Once I was down with the fort, I spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering along the Great Wall. This was my first experience with the wall and rather than the dramatic twists and turns in the mountainside, this section just flowed into the barren desert. It was fun to do, but not the amazing experience I'm hoping for outside of Beijing.

Riding Off Into the Sunset, On A Camel

My last stop out West turned out to be one of my favorites. The Great Wall is supposedly the border, but Dunhuang really is at the edge of civilization. My hostel literally backed into sand dunes. I had previously been convinced of the pleasure of an overnight stay in the desert and the camel trek sounded fun. I was prepared to go by myself, but I was grateful when I found the other two guests in my hostel were equally keen on spending the night among the freezing elements.

Before riding off into the sunset on my camel, I first visited the Magao Caves, the largest complex of Buddhist Grottoes in China. As you can probably guess from my two previous experiences, I had an interesting visit here. Louyang and Tianshui have impressive carvings, Magao has that, plus some very unique artwork throughout the site. Think Buddhist art meets Arabic art. Flying Buddhas, dramatic colors, something unlike anything I've previously seen. I think this site along would justify coming all the way out here. The desert is an added bonus.

Dunhuang is home to some of the tallest sand dunes in the world, and the desert here looks like it does in the movies. It's no coincidence since they actually film movies out here. We could see their trucks in the distance. I was hoping to be an extra in a Chinese Kung Fu desert movie (how cool would that have been?), but it didn't happen. The camel trek was nice, nothing to blow my mind since I've been in the desert before, unlike my Chinese companions. It's always peaceful to be in the middle of nowhere. Since there was a full moon, midnight felt like dusk and while the stars were out in full force, it wasn't one of those nights where they blanket the sky.

It was very cold, certainly less than freezing and even with my warmest clothes on, I still felt chilly. The camel guide was fortunately well prepared bringing along old army jackets. Unfortunately he didn't have the matching maozi (hat) since that would have had the double benefit of warming the ears and making for a funny picture. His other technique to battle the cold was to light dried camel dung on fire and bury the embers under the tent. He clams to have discovered this technique himself. Which is a shame, since this is a well-known strategy for adding warmth when needed. Let me tell you, nuzzling into your sleeping bag in the freezing desert is much easier when you're on top of some smouldering poop.

The next day, we got up to watch the sunrise. But since china doesn't 'believe' in time zones, this was easier than it sounds. Sunrise was at 8:30 or so, kind of weird. What I enjoyed most about the desert was climbing up the sizable dunes and tromping back down. Invariably the dune peaks seemed closer than they were and it was tough, yet rewarding work. Some times the sand was nice and compact and no problem to walk in, at other points, I would sink in to my knees. The climbing up was nice and the view from the dunes was really great, but my favorite part of the whole trip was finding my way down the dunes. This was best done by running as fast as I could through the powdery sand. The inclination was very steep and the only way to prevent tumbling down was to keep running. Oh, what great fun. It was with great satisfaction that I would take off my shoes and empty the ample quantities of sand.

So that was Dunhuang and the desert. Really pleasurable, if the temperature was a little bit more accommodating I would stay longer. It was certainly time for me to see the capital and after a thirty hour train trip that would finally happen.