At this point I had been “on the road” for two weeks, though it seemed like two years ago that I’d left Beijing and Xi’an! Leaving Urumqi by train was for me, the goodbye to Xinjiang, as although I still had hours and hours of travel technically in Xinjiang, most of it would be overnight and spent sleeping through the long desert crossing and back into far western Gansu province, where the next stop would be the old Silk Road oasis of Dunhuang.
Dunhuang became a prominent garrison town and crossroads during the Han dynasty beginning about the 200’s B.C. Although Jiayuguan which is over 300 km to the northeast, is more famous as being “the western end of the Great Wall,” technically speaking, that’s only true for the more famous Ming Great Wall which we all know and love. In fact, there are still a very few remnants left of the much older but little-known Han Great Wall which preceded it by over a millenium. The Han Great Wall was mostly of rammed-earth construction, much of which has weathered away and melted back into the landscape over the centuries. But it is possible to see a few wall and watchtower ruins out in the desert, accessed by private car from modern Dunhuang.
Ancient Dunhuang was also the junction where the Northern Silk Road via Turpan joined up with the Southern Silk Road coming from Hotan and Charchen. So it was a very busy place and had an unusual variety of people and cultures passing through. Dunhuang was one of China’s earliest Buddhist centers, evidenced by the extensive cave sites around the area. The most famous of these, the Mogao Caves (Grottoes), date from the 4th century A.D.
Getting into Dunhuang
I’d decided a few weeks earlier that the easy method of getting to Dunhuang—flight from Urumqi—was prohibitively expensive (about RMB 1000 at the time) so rail was the only realistic option, with soft sleeper lower berth saving me over USD 100 on transport, plus additional savings not needing an extra hotel night.
Note: Flights in/out of Dunhuang from/to anywhere are not plentiful and rarely see much discounting, so ticket prices are expensive. And Dunhuang airport (DNH) while conveniently close to the town, is often subject to operational shutdowns and flight cancellations due to weather and sandstorms. This is more common in winter and spring.
For rail travel, Dunhuang has two stations: the newest is on the outskirts of the city itself, and is designed for high-speed rail. Unfortunately, the current schedule only has three HSR trains arriving from the east (from Lanzhou) at this most convenient facility--hopefully this will increase in the future. All trains arriving from the west (from Urumqi) still stop only at the old “Dunhuang” rail station on the main trunk line. This station is actually called Liuyuan and it is a rather godforsaken outpost, with an unattractive small settlement built around it but a huge number of track segments and sidebars. But definitely not the place to get stuck if you can avoid it. Liuyuan is unfortunately nowhere close to Dunhuang city—it takes a full two hours to drive between the two.
My no-number train 1086 from Urumqi to Liuyuan had not been bad as I feared it might, it was fully airconditioned and my soft sleeper berth and carriage was not really any different than on a K train. We arrived at Liuyuan station about 08:30 on June 30, about 30 minutes behind schedule, mostly because it seemed we were endlessly waiting just shy of the junction for track switching or something. A surprising number of fellow passengers, including my compartmentmates from Guizhou, alighted here along with me. Unfortunately, both they and some other passengers I was able to strike up quick conversations with, already had prearranged transport to Dunhuang town and no empty space in their various vehicles. Bummer. However, after fending off a couple of insistent taxi drivers who offered to drive me for RMB 160 (solo) and minibus drivers who offered rides for RMB 30 as long as I waited for more passengers coming in on the next train (yeah, right). Didn’t like either of those options, so within about 10-15 minutes after canvassing some other soloists, I had three other Chinese guys to join forces with and share a taxi, at RMB 40 per person. They were working for a local company in Dunhuang, and all insisted I ride up front with the driver in a seat of my own...which was great for me.
Tip #1: If you train into Liuyuan without prearranged transport and need to set something up in Real Time, look for fellow passengers wanting to share (everyone’s going to Dunhuang town!), and until everything is settled, keep your luggage firmly in hand and resist all attempts of drivers and minibus touts to take it from you and put in their vehicle.
Tip #2: If coming from the east (Lanzhou, Zhangye, Jiayuguan) or if heading out that way, then try for tickets on one of the few D trains that go all the way to the new Dunhuang station. At least, try to limit the Liuyuan to Dunhuang road connection to one direction only. On the way to Dunhuang, I was patting myself on the back for having the foresight to deal with the ticket mob scene at Kashgar station and advance purchase a train ticket directly out of Dunhuang for my exit plan, thus being able to forego a repeat of this interstitial car trip.
Dunhuang Town
We got to Dunhuang town in exactly two hours, which squares with what most guidebooks say. The taxi driver dropped me off right in front of my hotel, and I got checked in quickly, into a quiet room on the third floor. Unfortunately, this is another one of those hotels with no elevator. Sigh. I cleaned up a little bit, got the internet going (good wifi here) and then about 13:00 (BJ time), starting walking around the town as is my habit. I was impressed. Dunhuang struck me as very clean and tidy, no rubbish in the streets, nice bilingual signage pointing the way to various places of interest—obviously somebody had us tourists in mind! Nice scale to the city, mostly it is 3-5 stories, with storefronts, sidewalks, and streets that are well-suited to the town’s size and population. Just an all-around nice feeling emanating from the place. A mix of people, it’s definitely a Han-majority town but with a goodly sprinkling of Hui Muslims, a stray few Uighurs, and a few other minorities from time to time.
I took an immediate liking to the central part of town which is where I was staying. I also found the nearby Pedestrian Street, which was pretty dead in the very early afternoon but which I was assured would be very active beginning about 16:00. And also found my predetermined target for lunch: the American-owned Oasis Cafe, which luckily opened at 14:00 right before I showed up. Owner Kevin has been in Dunhuang about 5 years and seems to be filling a niche in these parts. As soon as he mentioned his fairly new real pizza ovens, I knew that’s what I wanted. A delicious and very creditable sausage pizza and two real, fresh iced teas, plus homemade chocolate cake with real whipped cream. Thought I’d died and gone to heaven.....truly a modern oasis. Likely the same feeling the ancient camel caravanners had when they came out of the desert, saw Dunhuang, and knew that good eats that didn't involve lamb, and fresh water, were no mirage. Spent about 1.5 hours there eating and chatting, then back to hotel room to rest. Resolved to come back the next day.
Singing Sand Dunes, Take One
I set out about 17:00 for the sand dunes (remember that this far west, that’s actually more like 15:00 in terms of sun angle). The ride only took about 15 minutes from central Dunhuang, but taxi driver ripped me off for RMB 20 which was my own fault for not checking his (continuous running) meter and having him reset it to zero when I got in. I walked up to the big ceremonial tourist gate and ticket office, but I balked at the RMB 120 entrance fee. This fee gets you into a fenced-off area where you can avail yourself (at additional cost) of camel rides, dune sliding, ATV buggy off-roading, and viewing of the Crescent Lake. But if you aren’t into these made-for-Chinese-tourist attractions, the entrance fee is an insult to see a natural attraction that doesn’t need any upkeep. And for the first time in this trip, the weather/skies really were unfavorable. There was so much haze that you could barely make out the outline of the dunes.
My pre-trip preparations had informed me that there was a way to get back to those dunes for free if all one wanted to do was see and perhaps climb them and take photos, so I tried village roads to the left, then to the right to get around the fenced area, all to no avail. Finally about 18:30, I gave up in disgust and took the Bus #3 back to town for RMB 1. At least something was a good deal. Then thinking food would console me at my failed quest, I headed to night market for a Sichuan place recommended by Kevin at the Oasis earlier in the day. Had a nice meal and local Huang beer—not too strong but reasonably good. Everything went down well and too much to finish. It seemed like most of Dunhuang comes and eats here, at the night food court area which is a wonderful cacophony of all different types of offerings—some of which look reasonably sanitary! And at the open vendor-with-seating areas lining Pedestrian Street. There were lots of kebabs of course, and noodles, and a mix of various Chinese and Muslim cooking. Still not too much pork around. You don’t see as many Muslims here like you do further west in Turpan, but they are around and especially in the food court and adjacent pedestrian street. By now, it was about 20:00 and the pedestrian street was packed with locals and a few tourists (Chinese and foreign) working their way through the eats and the souvenir stands. A really nice and laid-back atmosphere. I can see that when the weather is good, every night’s a party here.
Stopped to get a couple of bottled waters for the next day’s outing to the Mogao Caves, then back to my hotel for a clean up, some internet, and to try and figure out how this Silk Road trip all ends up in a few days!