Gobi Desert Camel Caravan

Day 6: Dunhuang (overnight stay in the Gobi Desert)

I decided to dedicate an entire post to our camel ride into the Gobi Desert, where we stayed overnight in tents, surrounded by sleepy sand dunes and covered by another amazing blanket of stars. We actually didn't plan on taking this tour at all, it was only when we stumbled into some random Western hostel where we discovered that it was even possible... for just 300RMB per person! Camel, food, tent, and quirky guide all included. :)

It was amazing. Even though we weren't deep inside the Gobi, we were far enough to be alone with nature... and once the silence hits you... it's easy to feel crushingly small. I couldn't stop staring at the starscape (yes I just made that up). I saw quite a few shooting stars, even satellites! If the light is blinking steadily, it's a plane. If it's not blinking and is chugging through the sky, it's a satellite. If the light darts across the sky and then disappears, it's a shooting star. Planets can be brighter than stars. If you strain your eyes too much when you're staring at the stars you can feel dizzy. And that you should have gotten a higher prescription for your glasses. Gene didn't bring his iPad on this trip, otherwise we could have used the Starwalk application, but it was easy to see how ancient people could trace figures in the sky. I saw Godzilla, giant ice cream cone, Pikachu... :)

We were invited to rest in Master Li's (李師傅) home while he was prepping the camels.

I'm guessing a typical home in the Gansu countryside. It was simple, clean, and cozy!

Off I go, on George the Camel! :D

First passing through the outskirts of Dunhuang, where we were surrounded by fields of corn and cotton.

We reached the periphery of the desert, which was a graveyard.

These people were buried under conical pyramid-like markers on very flat land. I thought mountains would have been preferable for fengshui reasons, but maybe they don't believe in it here? Almost all of these pyramids were neatly lined with brick, which was definitely the material of choice. If a visitor came then they'd leave a white strip of paper on the grave, weighted down by a stone. The ground was littered with paper. Each grave had their own plot of land, which were quite large at ~50m x 75m. There's more than enough land to go around here, at least the dry useless kind.

After passing through the graveyard (which wasn't scary in the daylight), we started climbing the sand dunes. The camels were very well-behaved and they smelled neutral too! I didn't stick my nose into their fur, but I didn't get any stinky whiffs at all unless they were pooping/peeing... But you will see later that their poop is actually quite useful! Don't jump to conclusions, just keep on reading!

Oh sweet Archibald, Gene's grey and balding camel. :)

You see the rod through his nose? That's how they control the animal (by pulling it).

After we got to our campsite, the four of us thought that it'd be a good idea to climb to the top of a nearby sand dune to watch the sunset. Was it as bad as climbing the Singing Sand Dunes the day before. No. It was much WORSE. I never want to climb another sand dune in my entire life.

Goodbye Sun!

At night Master Li cooked us a lip-smacking meal of ramen and (Chinese) Spam. Then we huddled around a fire made out of poop. Yes you heard me, POOP!!!!!!!!!!! O_O

Apparently camel poop is only like 1% "real poop" and 99% dried up grass (okay I'm making this statistic up but it's for my own peace of mind), which makes it perfect combustible material when you're in the desert and you have no wood in a 473248392 mile radius. It also doesn't stink, I swear. Nevermind Marge in the picture below. We had a grand ol' time, with wacky Jack Nicholson doppleganger Master Li singing us Cultural Revolution lullabies.

That night we just relaxed around our poop fire, listening to Master Li's weird tunes and trying to catch the satellites and shooting stars in the nighttime sky. It was lovely. We slept in tents after we started to get sleepy and it was actually not cold at all compared to Tianchi. Master Li found us a really cozy nook with giant sand dunes surrounding us, so it wasn't windy at all. Because we had to catch a 9:30am train to Jiayuguan the next morning, Master Li woke us up at 5:30am Beijing time, which is really like 4am Gansu time. Ughhhhhhh..... luckily we had these Commie-era army jackets to keep us warm.

Heading back to Dunhuang on our trusty camels.

This time it WAS a bit creepy passing through the graveyard. I wouldn't have been surprised if a mummy came out to say hello.

Communist Camel Cavalry, 1948.

(Or just a crazy bag lady)

Oh, I forgot to mention that we picked up a Japanese friend on this trip, Tatsu (far left).

He's travelling across the world for an entire year, budgeting out $20,000 only for ALL his expenses. He said that he saved up for 5 years to live out this dream but that he has a girlfriend at home. He hopes she will wait for him.

There's not much more to say about the overnight trip into the Gobi except that it was a worthwhile adventure. I know that I'm not Indiana Jones, but I know that when my kids grow up and get a chance to make it out there that this opportunity may not exist anymore, with the pace at which China is modernizing and all. Maybe it'll cost 3000RMB instead of 300RMB. Maybe there will be roads crossing through our campsite. Maybe they'll build a theme park. Some part of me feels like this was a very special experience because of China's rapid changes, and that what I've seen on this whole trip will end up only existing in my head and on this blog.

Singing Sand Dunes

Day 5: Dunhuang (Singing Sand Dunes)

Day 6: Dunhuang (Mogao Caves, overnight stay in the Gobi Desert)

Evening of Day 4, we headed out from Turpan (in Xinjiang Province) to Dunhuang (Gansu Province). Both Turpan and Dunhuang are must-see places on the Silk Road circuit, but linking up these two towns was a stressful travel experience. If you're going to attempt this same leg, here are a couple of words from the wise:

1. You'd think that China has a huge train network that allows you to pick any permutation of stops. You're wrong. Especially in the Western region, there's really just one main railroad that's like an aorta, and you get on/off at the closest town to your ultimate destination... usually a 3 hour drive away. So even though people say that Turpan has its own train station, what they really mean is that it's "only" a 1 hour drive from the ACTUAL town with the station (some sketchy bumblef*ck place). Same deal with Dunhuang, which is one of the most famous historical towns in China -- only recently did it get its own new train station, but it doesn't link up to the "Turpan station", so we actually arrived in another town at around 5am and then got into a taxi for 2-3 hours. Painful.

2. We had a "mule" bring our tickets from Urumqi to Turpan (3 hour ride), where we picked up our tickets at the station. It was literally like the passing of the Olympic Torch. It was so stressful because I had to communicate with the mule via SMS the whole time as to precisely which train, which train car, what time, etc... and position ourselves so that we were at the right spot to collect the tickets from him when he got off the train, and then hop on the train ourselves. This all seems way too complicated and unnecessary, doesn't it? Well, apparently because Turpan is not the first stop of the "railroad aorta", it's almost impossible to book a overnight ticket for our leg of the trip (we were traveling during National Week). Then you'll ask why can't we just buy the tickets for Urumqi to Dunhuang, and then just get on at Turpan? Because the railroad company will resell your tickets if you don't get on the train at the designated departure station. Yes, you lose your spot. So now you know why we had to pay for a train mule. So much could have gone wrong, folks... but we made it. :)

3. Overnight trains are not a bad deal. Highly recommended -- they've banned smoking and spitting now, even in the hard sleeper section.

On our way to the "Turpan train station".

An 8 hour overnight ride, where Gene and I experienced a horrible gastrointestinal thrashing. Marge and Rob were right about that sketchy looking lamb. :(

We arrived at Dunhuang at 5am the next morning and hopped onto a taxi, which ended up being a 2 hour death ride through the Gansu plains. It was completely pitch black, the road had no lights, it was literally a straight line, and we were probably driving at 175km an hour or however fast that tin-can could possibly go. Gene was riding shotgun so he was trying to make sure the driver stayed awake (would you be able to keep your eyes open if you were driving in the dark on a straight line???). Oh, and 5am in Western China is really like 2am, because Beijing keeps all the provinces in the same time zone. At some point I was so tired that I let myself pass out, rationalizing that if I was going to die in the hands of Mr. Speed Racer, I might as well not see it coming. We made it though, and staggered through the doors of our very decent 3 star hotel.

We decided to give ourselves a break for the first half of the day, catching up on sleep and taking long hot showers. I realized later that the difference between a 2 and 3 star hotel in China is whether or not they have 24-hour hot water available. So very key!

Later that day when we got all refreshed, we rented bikes and rode towards Crescent Moon Spring (月牙泉) and the Singing Sand Dunes (鳴沙山), where you can pretend to be Prince of Persia, go sand-sledding, and even practice your bow-hunting skillz. We also had these neon orange booties strapped to our legs so sand wouldn't run into our shoes.

Riding a camel while talking on a cellphone. The man takes it to a new level!

What do you think these Chinese say when they're going through their vacation photos?

"Oh, and this is a Laowai (老外)! Yea, Dunhuang was great."

It was really really tough getting up the sand dunes.

Something like 1 step up, 0.95 steps down with the 45+ degree incline.

People who made it to the ridge of the sand dune (not us).

This is when I realized that Rob has superhero thighs and supermodel poses.

... the stuff you see in comics but never think you'd see in real life.

We all took a couple rounds on the archery range -- it's really really fun!! I also got to live out my Night Elf Hunter dreams, hahaha... ^_^

Not surprisingly, some retardo Chinese think it's okay to step behind the archery range when a bunch of noobs (us) are releasing sharp high-speed projectiles in the air. I swear it's because of China's high population density that people behave like lemmings.

I was the slowest tobogganer ever. :(

Sunset on the sand dunes.

The next day we went to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Mogao Caves (莫高窟), which is an elaborate cave system of temples (492 of them) that showcase some of the finest Buddhist art that you'll find in the entire world. The first cave was constructed by a Buddhist monk around 400AD when he was travelling along the Silk Road and saw the silhouette of two "sleeping Buddhas" along the hills as the sun was setting. Inspired, he went to those hills and dug out a cave, commemorating his vision through art. Gradually, more and more monks created their own caves. Some of the bigger temples were commissioned by the royal family and wealthy merchants, similar to how art was patronized in the West.

If if you ever play charades with Gene, this is a "pagoda".

The green flag in front of the cave indicates that it's open that day.

The Mogao Caves only open 15 caves per day for minimum exposure and maximum preservation. 15 caves doesn't seem like much considering that there are over 400 caves available, but you'll be able to see an impressive variety of styles and themes.

Photography is prohibited (and vigilantly enforced), but I managed to sneak a photo in anyway because I'm a ninja. Wha-pow!

This isn't one of the best caves that we saw, but it's Sakyamuni Buddha's "court" (Tang Dynasty).

I didn't get to see this specific cave, but this is what they generally look like.

Mogao Caves was seriously the most culturally impressive part of the entire Silk Road trip. You'll see a lot of Buddhist art in Asia and there'll be a lot of recurring themes that get boring after awhile, but what makes Mogao Caves extremely special is the wide range of dyanstic styles. We saw caves that were created from the Sui, Tang (lots of that actually), Wei, and even Qing (they did a lot of touch-ups to the old caves). The figures of the sculptures, the patterns, the beams and actual shape of the ceiling, the type of material used... all of these were very different. It was amazing to see a such a diverse collection of artwork of similar theme in caves (not museums)! Okay, I don't know whether I'm doing a good job selling this place, but if you're on the Silk Road then you must make a stop at the Mogao Caves. If you can't understand Chinese very well, I recommend timing your trip so you can arrange for an English tour guide because otherwise a lot of interesting information might go over your head.

Oxidized flying asparas (飛天), aka pretty half-nekkid celestials.

Oxidation happens when light hits the paint, which is why no photography is allowed.

Also about the photo-taking thing -- I was a bad girl and sneaked one in at the very beginning, but there's a very valid reason why they're not allowed. The paint that is used in the Mogao Caves is mixed with certain metals that oxidize, so they'll gradually darken and turn black when exposed to light. Because these artwork are in caves, they're generally very well preserved, but you'll see that figures painted in the areas closer to the doors look drastically different than the ones deeper inside. For example, in one cave I thought that the images looked similar to African tribal art (just like the picture above), until the tour guide showed us the figures towards the back and oh my... I couldn't believe my eyes... so beautiful *stars streaming out of my eyes*. Of course if you're not using a flash while taking photos (like me) theoretically it should be fine, but you can't ensure that everyone will turn off their flash. That's why "no photography" blanket rules exist. I finally understand now -- so please follow the rules when you go to historical sites. They're there for a reason and we should try to preserve these cultural items for generations to come! :)

Next time, our overnight stay in the Gobi Desert!

Tourin' Turpan

Day 3: Back at Urumqi from Tianchi Lake, busride to Turpan
Day 4: Turpan

Hello! I've been incredibly busy lately that I barely have enough time to sleep/eat/poop these days. I've been to Shanghai for 2 weekends straight and homework still keeps on piling up. Ah well, if I don't continue posting Silk Road photos up then I'm afraid details are going to start slipping away. Girl's getting old, you know. :p

The Fabulous Four left Tianchi Lake bright and early on Day 3 and arrived back at Urumqi in the afternoon. Honestly, Urumqi isn't very interesting... it's pretty mundane except that: 1) the signs are in Uyghur along with Chinese, 2) half the people there look like hapas, 3) you can see yellow sandy mountains in the distance. Aside from that, it has the same feel, the same hustle, the same meh-ness of a regular Chinese city. Unless you see...

... that maybe it's not so normal for a Chinese city?
:p

Our next destination was Turpan (吐魯番), but we hadn't bought tickets there yet. Fortunately, a billion buses leave Urumqi for Turpan daily so all we had to do is drop by the bus station and buy our tickets on the spot.

Lining up at the Urumqi bus terminal.
A vast majority of the travelers here were Uyghur, which made sense since most of the Han people live in Urumqi and not the smaller cities/towns in Xinjiang. P.S. Uyghur babies are the cutest! They all have these extremely large and spherical heads. More evidence at the end of this post. :)

A typical Xinjiang landscape.
We saw fields of windmills on the 3 hour busride to Turpan... quite impressive, with no East Coast yuppies to petition the uglification of the no-one-cares land.

By the time we got to Turpan, it was already getting really late and we were starving like ravenous baby wolves. We hadn't reserved a room in Turpan and hoped we could play it by ear like the free-spirited backpackers that we were, but the 2004 Let's Go guide that we brought along (ahem, Gene) was indeed outdated. :( Desperate, we tagged along with our cabbie (he looked like a Uyghur George Lopez), who suggested another motel near his "tour company"... to our great surprise it ended up being a decent, clean, economical choice. It was also right across from the night market! Really -- there was 101 ways to rip us off that night, so I was relieved to not be cheated in China for once. But then again, we were still in China? Hm. I like the Uyghurs. :)

Feeding on (the best) lamb (ever!!!) and freshly-made Uyghur wontons.
We sat with several groups of local men at the night market (very few women out at night unless they were serving/making food), who were very gracious and offered to share their dinner with us. Otherwise they didn't really pay us any mind, but we felt a little uncomfortable drinking our beer at the table since Muslims don't consume alcohol.

The next day, we hired a driver to take us around the various tourist spots around Turpan. The area is a very interesting place in that it was once the Uyghur capital and a very important staging post on the Silk Road. The Ugyhurs were Buddhists until around the 8th century when they converted to Islam, so there's a lot of ancient Buddhist relics around this town. Turpan is the lowest spot in China (-154m sea level, 2nd lowest depression after the Dead Sea) and also the hottest spot in China (121.3 Fahrenheit). But because of the extreme heat and lack of humidity, Turpan grapes and raisins are super famous and delicious. :)

First stop -- Jiaohe Ruins (交河故城), an ancient Han dynasty city settled almost 2000 years ago. The reason why this place is called "jiao1 he2" is because this capital used to sit atop an island that was in the middle (交) of two rivers (河), with steep cliffs on all sides of the river that acted as a natural defense. Well guess what happened once the rivers ran dry... :/ Just ask Boyz II Men, or Genghis Khan who pillaged the shit out of this place.

Peering into what used to be the river bottom...

I really enjoyed walking around Jiaohe and imagining what life was like back then. When we think about people from the past, it's easy to believe that they were not as smart/advanced as we are today... but human civilization is a gradual technological and societal evolution with sporadic bursts, and seeing how complex yet transient this city was, standing 2000 years ago with garrisons, monasteries, trade avenues, town halls... it all makes me feel quite small and flimsy in the whole scheme of things.

Freshly baked nan (bread) for 1Y each.
Gastronomically orgasmic as it was, it was all we had for lunch. Not enuff.

After "lunch", we drove over to Huoyan Shan (火焰山), which is the famous mountain range in Journey to the West (西遊記) that monk Xuan Zang, Monkey King & Co. had a really tough time crossing. Supposedly they are named "blazing fire mountains" because they look like they're on fire with their purplish-brown color? Well, all I have to say is that people had a pretty active imagination back then. :)

"I'm on a horse."
"BLAGHAGHAHHHGGGGGFART."
"Camel."
* reference to the Grover Old Spice commercial* :)

Look, I'm on a Journey to the West! Wheeeee~~~! ^_^
It was a really nice view up here, but Dunhuang (our next stop) ends up being even prettier.

All done with our excursions, we sought sustenance at a market back in town where literally every stand served the exact. same. thing. Which was the exact same thing that we ate the night before. At the time I didn't really care since you can't go wrong with more mouth-watering lamb. OH WAIT... you CAN go wrong with too much lamb... as I found out later that night during our overnight train, keeled over and numb with pain at 4am. @_@

But backtrack to the dirty-ass market, aren't these munchkins so adorable?
I've never seen such a young child so adept at using chopsticks. Survival skillz.

Next time we pick up from our overnight train Dunhuang, our first stop in Gansu Province!

Tianchi Lake, Heaven on Earth

Day 1: Urumqi (烏魯木齊)

Day 2: Tianchi Lake (2 hrs away from Urumqi via a direct drive, 5 hrs if you get tricked onto a Chinese tour bus...!)

We (me, Gene, Margaret, and Robert) flew out of Nanjing on Friday afternoon but arrived at Urumqi late as balls, sitting on the tarmac for about an hour and making a less than desirable layover at Taiyuan, Shanxi. The actual plane ride went much smoother than I had anticipated, and although Margaret was thoroughly disgusted by being trapped in a flying tin can with people spitting out lugies at constant 30-second intervals, I had a great conversation with the middle-aged woman sitting next to me... who later disclosed that she was a government official. I should have gotten her number in case shit gets down, haha. So Day 1 of our trip was a bit of a wash, but we were on the the only flight from Nanjing to Urumqi available that day.

Boarding our old skool plane.

Did you really think the Chinese line up for anything? Even with reserved seating? No.

Day 2, we woke up early to catch a bus to Tianchi Lake (天池, actually adding "Lake" to "Tianchi" is totally redundant... 天池池?). Tianchi is a small glacial lake nestled between mountain peaks and fed by melting snow. By October, the weather was getting chilly but it was still accessible so long as it was before the first snowfall (then the roads close down). We planned to stay there overnight at a lakeside Kazakh yurt! :)

The ride there was supposedly going to take 2 hours (115 km), but unfortunately the bus we found turned out to be part of a tour group... so we were dragged along one of those abhorrent classic Chinese tours for around 4-5 hours. When the Chinese go on trips all they give a care about are photo ops and tacky souvenirs (like herbal "medicine" mostly). Oh, but don't get me wrong, I'm not elitist. My own mom once brought me back "silver-infused lotion with crushed pearls" when she came back from a trip to China. Yea so... tell me what happens if I smother this on my face and it oxidizes...? Chinese people are so silly.

Early morning in Urumqi, scratching out heads trying to figure how to get to Tianchi.

In one of our many stops on the tour bus, we saw cows.

And cow poop. :)

When we finally got to Tianchi in the afternoon, all our frustrations with the Chinese tour group completely melted away. Our contact for the overnight Kazakh yurts, a man named Rashit (who is avidly recommended on Lonely Planet and Let's Go travel guides for a very good reason), met us at the parking lot and took us to his campsite on the other side of the lake.

Look at this, no Photoshop at all and still SO PRETTYYYYY~~~~~~!!! @_@

Sigh. Computer wallpaper?

Tianchi, Xinjiang... or perhaps Azshara, Kalimdor? :D

I had this epiphany as we were rounding the lake. Then Gene called me a nerd. :(

Walking half-way around the lake took us a good hour or so. The park was very well maintained, with beautiful newly paved paths that weaved through the rocks and trees. One of Rashit's sons (we ended being passed to Rashit's eldest son to his middle son to his youngest son along the way to the campsite) told us that this path was constructed very recently. I was impressed that China's rapid improvements made it all the way up to this 1980m high lake. And that I felt like I was in a MMORPG. ^_^

Rashit's yurts. Highly highly recommended.

Rashit's family are originally from Tianchi, so you could say that this campsite is truly their home. His wife cooked us a delicious lunch and dinner, and we had salty milk tea that hit the spot after a long hike.

When we stepped inside the yurt, we could not believe how beautiful it was! It was completely lined with brightly patterned cloths and rugs, with thick pillows and blankets on the side. Near the door, which was also painted with intricate designs, was a heater. It came into very good use later on that night... brr! (I got a little sick anyway because it got so cold still.)

We stumbled upon some photoshoots while walking around. I estimate around 15 pairs of brides/grooms were around the lake that day taking wedding photos. By late afternoon, the sun was starting to set and the temperature took a nosedive... poor strapless brides! Seriously though, Tianchi would be a lovely place to take wedding photos and I'm sure these pictures turned out fantastic.

Nighttime in our cozy yurt, chatting by candlelight and huddling around our wood-burning stove.

Gene went out to the treeline to forage for fuel for our stove, and we learned about the difference between tinder, kindle, and sustainment wood. Rangers sure come in handy! :D

The moon illuminating the yurts.

As a city girl, I never really got to see a whole blanket of stars before... Before the moon came out, we could clearly see the Milky Way and the sky was literally glittering above us. I can't believe how much city lights wash all the stars out, because in New York you'd have to go upstate to even see the Big Dipper. We all went to bed fairly early because it got really cold, but I woke up in the middle of the night to use the outhouse. I stumbled outside the yurt prepared with my flashlight, but realized that the moon had come out. It was so bright that I didn't need my flashlight at all... everything so clear, except in greyscale. It was so quiet and serene (almost frighteningly so), so I sat at the picnic table for a minute just taking the whole scene in. But then I started to get scared (ghosts, werewolves, rapists oh my!) and scurried back, but not before taking a photo first. :p

Tianchi was an amazing way to kick off our Silk Road trip. The lake was sparkling and pristine, the tree leaves were turning color, and the snow-capped mountains loomed impressively around us. We got to live with a Kazakh household (kind of) in an original and not touristy way. It was a great lifestyle comparison. Rashit's youngest son told us that he and his family wanted to stay in Tianchi forever, and that they're all very happy together just like this.

I can see why. :)