As I'd expected, the weather in the morning proves clear. We drive out of town along a narrow belt of the highway that traces the Hexi Corridor, accompanied for a good many hours by the snow covered array of peaks to the south. The view to the north brings with it the odd ruin, or the remnants of a village long abandoned to the desert, which had by now taken a full hold. I spy a dirt track, and muse that this is what the Silk Road would have looked like in days of old; barren ground tramped flat by the passage of hundreds of camels. Eventually wind farms appear, and not much later, an oasis of sorts, large rectangular patches of green. A look at the map confirms that there is indeed a river nearby.
The driver was contracted to take a long break every four hours, so as the rest of the group pokes around a series of stalls selling dried fruit, I shoot a round of hoops with the husbands of two of the shopkeepers. Whether heat, elevation, time, or age, my skills have deteriorated considerably since the playing days of young adulthood, and it took at least a half dozen shots before I even found the rim.
A later stop of lunch, across the road from an old stone wall that was probably part of the western extension of the Great Wall. What we'd visited the day before is referred to as the Wall's western end, but sections of an older Han period wall can be seen through the rest of the drive to Dunhuang. Even in their wind-worn state, the wall proves the highest feature in this barren land.
The Mingsha Dunes that follow are nearly as barren, mainly camels, and tourists, and sand. LYL and I pass the copious souvenir stalls for a quick visit to Crescent Lake, then I begin to climb the dune, grateful for the footholds provided by a rope ladder laid over the sand. A number of other visitors are climbing partway up in order to toboggan down a section that has been set up specifically for this purpose. What frustrates is having to detour around the slower climbers when they stop to take yet another selfie. But I don't really mind the worst offenders: a pair of women wearing the flowing silk T'ang period veils and robes, who make for a splendidly colorful vision against the yellow sand.
Atop the dune I sit awhile and turn my gaze away from the tourist circus below, allowing my eyes to trace the curves of the sea of dunes beyond. There aren't too many people up here, but I never fully escape the noise, can never fully sink into the feeling of remoteness and isolation. Marco Polo referred to these as the singing sands for the sound they'd make underfoot, but in his day that must have been the song of the Fat Lady, for the show is over, the sands sing no more.
I enjoy a gravity-assisted run back down the dune, to rejoin LYL who I had spied from above. We sit awhile to await the rest of our group, and nearby a group of dancers in traditional T'ang clothing spin to recorded music. They don't appear to be an organized attraction, probably a group of young women enjoying a bit of cosplay.
After dark removes the heat from the day, we leave our spacious hotel for dinner in town. Tonight's digs are nice, the best we've had so far. I feel bit cheated in how little time we'll get here, and in Dunhuang in general. I would've enjoyed a visit out to the ruined Jade Gate, and perhaps a visit to the old film set built in 1987 for the Japanese film Tonko. The town too looks pleasant, one of the nicest in China.
But my only real experiences with it revolve around meals. A photo in the restaurant shows that Sammo Hung, though it doesn't mention if he sampled the donkey penis on offer on the menu. Our own group settles for different parts of the animal altogether, washed down with yet another warm beer. Breakfast is too pleasant, taken in the cool of morning on the terrace that faces the dunes.
I sneak in a quick stroll in the hotel garden, reading the array of photos which explain a little of the Silk Road's history. Then we head out to experience the real thing, the Magao Grottoes. Our local guide has very good English, and she leads us to eight or nine of the caves, namely those with the bigger Buddhas or more important artifacts. I sneak a quick photo of Cave 17, whose vast number of sutras were taken to England by Aurel Stein at the dawn of the 20th Century. The most important of these was of course the Diamond Sutra, dating from 868, and now at home in British Museum. While quite a few Europeans passed through Magao around that time, it is Stein who is painted most as the villain, the words commonly associated with him being 'thief.' And conversations regarding him tend to polarize, showing where one stands on the subject of whether these sorts of cultural treasures belong to mankind, or to the culture that spawned them.
Regardless of how you feel about China's ever-changing relationship with its history, I am impressed with how well they were looking after the place today. Visitors must travel in smaller groups, and those group are staggered upon entry. This prevents overcrowding within the narrow caves themselves, but also allows one occasional moments alone to feel the space of the canyon itself.
This aloneness is something that I feel is sadly missing in the current climate of hypertourism. As one who loves history, I travel not so much to engage a place as much as to engage time. Yet the crowds never fail to tether me to the monotonous and mundane present. It is almost better to stay home and read about an imagined past, than to expend great effort to actually visit and be let down.
On the turntable: Keiko Matsui, "Wildflower"
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