Silk Road - Gansu DunHuang, Mogao in the Gobi

Done with the bus, my 1st train ride in China, out of Xinjiang, heading east to the city of Dunhuang in Gansu. I was shocked to see the amount of crowd staying overnight in Turfan train station on the floor in order to get a train ticket.  We got a seater for the night train instead of a sleeper make it a tough night to endure. The "platform ticket" holders were standing all around us, they wouldn't get a seat if the train is full, the train was full.

There was no sleep all the way and we reached the centre of the Gobi Desert before sunrise. Gobi is the Mongolian word for "waterless place". We catched a van to Dunhuang while the sun seemed to be waking up. Even Gobi is surrounded by snow capped mountains in the north - Altai and in the south - Qilian, we only see sand in the middle.

Everyone who came to Dunhuang, came for 2 sites - Mogao Grottoes and Yueyaquan (Crescent Lake).

Mogao Grottoes, for it is so famous, it does not require much introduction.  For any Buddhists and art carvers, Mogao Grottoes is the only and ultimate place to visit. A cliff that secured from the north-west wind erosion, a monk that passed by on the Silk Road, the greatest Buddhist site was created in AD336. The cliff was carved into more than 1000 caves, always digged from the top of the cliff,  carved in so that the monks could use the natural sunlight in the morning, then down to the bottom. Many monks passed by and eventually 400+ residing caves were carved for meditation, only 300+ caves were carved into holy scripted caves. Too bad, no camera or photos inside the grottoes to protect the carved and coloured carvings.

In the 90's, the richiest Chinese in the world donated a fortune and maintenance work started.  Now, all the caves are covered for protection from erosion.  We were only allowed 10-15 caves per visit.

Yueyaquan (Crescent Lake) is where I had my ever 1st camel ride and 1st sand boarding down the dune. It is also the place where you hear, ya, hear the Singing Sand Dunes, an effect from the blowing wind.  Crescent lake is an oddity because it is in the middle of no where, a little oasis with a cresent lake, out of no where.

I hiked up, yes, no buggies, hiked all the way up those sand dunes just to get my 1 ride on the sand board, like a little boat. It was funnest thing I done, get the adreline running.

And the camel ride, such cute animals.

If you notice, the camel in the Gobi is the Bactrian camel, not the Arabian camel.  The Bactrian camel got two-humped to suit the arid environment here, great transportors with a good thick wool.  I was enchanted by the camels.  I thought they are a bunch of lovely cuties.