DunHuang, China
The train attendant woke me up and arrived at LiuYuan train station at 5.15am in the morning. Got on a shared taxi (30 Yuan ~USD$4.5, 1.5 hours ride) and departed for DunHuang which is another 150km away.
Arrived at Dunhuang around 7.40am and asked the taxi driver to drop me off at the bus station because it’s still dark because of winter. Since the sky will only lit up at 9am in the morning I stored my bag at the train station and planned my next destination. Spent some time thinking if I wanted to stop by JiaYuGuan or just go direct to Lanzhou.
Since time is tight, I decided to go direct to LanZhou and bought the 7.05 pm train ticket (251 Yuan, Upper Berth sleeper) at the station and skip the trip to JiaYuGuan.
Walked around and found an internet cafe close to the bus station. Finally I can check my email after 10 days without internet access. Spent an hour at an internet cafe (3 Yuan). Surprisingly, the internet speed was quite fast. I always thought that because of the Great Firewall in China, it will slow down internet access in the country.
MoGao Caves is sort of a must see tourist spot in DunHuang. The cave is around 25km away from DunHuang city. Took a public bus (8 Yuan, 30 minutes ride) few blocks down the road from the bus station and I was lucky that I don’t have to wait long for the bus to depart. Met few other Chinese tourist on the bus and head to the cave together. I haven’t really seen any tourist in XinJiang province so it’s a good thing to exchange information.
Since it’s a low season for tourism, the ticket was 50% off the usual price of 160Yuan. For people with Chinese university ID, it cost only 40 Yuan to enter but ISIC card is not accepted.
Mogao Caves
Map
Some Chinese tourists
MOgao Caves is famous for its Chinese Buddhist art. It has the greatest repositories of Buddhist art in the world. There are more than a thousand caves here. The founding of the first cave was around 366AD. There is also the world’s 3rd largest statue of Buddha 34.5 meters (The world biggest Buddha statue is in SiChuan province and is around 65 meters tall) is in one of the cave.
Camera is not allowed in the caves and the art on the wall and statues are quite well preserved. There is an infamous library Cave 17 which stored many priceless Buddhist manuscripts but in 1924, close to 20,000 of the manuscripts and books were sold to a British and French archaeologist for 150 pounds.
We visited 10 caves and then took the 1.30pm bus back to the city.
Visited ShaZhou Market
Famous DunHuang statue
With a traveller from Shanghai
Crescent Moon Lake (YueYaQuan) is around 5km south of DunHuang. Took public bus no. 3 (1 Yuan) to get there but I didn’t go in because I thought the entrance fee of 120 Yuan is quite expensive.
Able to see sand dunes outside the gate.
DunHuang has a new train station 12km away from the city. Took a bus to DunHuang new train station
at 6pm to catch my 7pm train T9668 (DunHuang-Lanzhou) to Lanzhou.
Nice post. Dunhuang, a city found by Emperor Wudi of the Han family.Mogao Caves is a good example of art and culture of Dunhuang.You can see Yangguan Pass, Yumenguan Pass.You will get plenty of hotels and restaurants.Best time to visit this place in the month of May to September.Don’t fail to visit ight market there you can buy variety of dried fruits and nuts which is very good. For more details refer http://www.travelasia360.net/dunhuang-a-precious-world-heritage.html