Another day, another set of adventures. We spent this day in Dunhuang, junction of the northern and southern routes of the Silk Road around the Taklamakan Desert. The town was fortified with a part of the Great Wall, near the beginning of the Han dynasty about 100 BC. The Chinese defeated the Turkic people of the desert area, controlled this important oasis situated between the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts,and moved in thousands of Han Chinese settlers. Does this sound familiar? We unexpectedly found another contemporary echo. We asked about a large, multi-story housing complex on the outskirts of town. Dunhuang's Muslim population was moved into this complex by the Chinese government, out of their central city neighborhood, from housing our guide described as unsafe. We wonder how the Muslim community feels about the trade-off -- are indoor bathrooms, air-conditioning and new construction a sufficient trade-off for the loss of cultural history and old communities?
The Magao Caves outside Dunhuang are absolutely astonishing. They are a series of grottoes lining a sandstone cliff face. They were dug out, painted with murals and filled with statues, all in service of the Buddha. The caves date from the 4th to the 14th century. They were often financed by rich merchants from the Silk Road, seeking merit. Because of the centrality of this oasis to the Silk Road, Dunhuang is perhaps the real gateway between the East and the West - the place to give thanks for safe passage and to pray for success in the next part of the journey. (Although, other places make the same claim to gateway or passageway, like Jiayuguan).
There are nearly 500 caves still in good condition, with more than 45,000 murals and 2,000 painted stucco figures. The operators of the park (the government) open a different 30 caves each year, to preserve the site from damage. The caves are connected by a set of balconies and ladders and are three stories high in most places. The site is a study in Chinese art history. The facial characteristics of the Buddha and his attendants change through the dynasties, as do the colors and symbols surrounding the figures. Colors, red, black, green, white, are vivid today, though the skin tones in some have darkened due to the paint oxidizing. Our site guide, Betty, was knowledgeable about the art styles of each dynasty. She was especially dismissive of those trashy Qing restorers in the 18th and 19th centuries, who used garish colors, especially bright reds.
We ended our time in Dunhuang with a ramble through the night market. It's a bustling mix of cheap clothes and shoes, local fruits and vegetables, tea, spices and trinkets. We gathered food for our train ride overnight and found some nice local jade. We also found a coffee house (!), serving real, freshly ground coffee and homemade ice cream. It was run by an American ex-pat couple (he with the broadest Oklahoma accent imaginable), who plan a chain of such coffee houses across China.
We left for the 2-hour drive to the train station, across the Gobi. It had rained the night before, already a surprise. Then, mid-way on our trip, the skies opened in a downpour. In a very short time, parts of the road had running water and rivers of moving sandy mud. I'm always a nervous passenger, but I knew we were in trouble for real when both our guide and our driver grabbed their cell phones, talked excitedly into them, and took pictures. I guess our driver, Mr. Feng, has not read the research on cell phones and driving. We slithered and slid our way through the storm, to be greated by a rainbow. As our guide Helen put it, in-the-middle-of-Gobi-desert-a-rainbow -- a miracle.
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