Day 38 - Train to Dunhuang

Day 38

We didn’t sleep well on the train.  The beds were hard and the train was noisy.  They also locked the “western toilet” room and that meant that I HAD to use the squat toilet, and I was not happy!  They just don’t like to clean them.  It isn’t a matter of getting the toilet paper stuck in the pipes because they warn you not to use it while we are stopped in the station.  Now hopefully you know what happens when you flush the toilet on the train without me having to explain more…  We arrived at Liuyuan on time and Lily got us off the train and then we found Marvin, the tour operator.  After we got on the bus we rode two hours on one of the bumpiest roads I have ever been on!  We finally made it to Dunheung without anyone getting motion sick.  We left our luggage at the hotel, had an early lunch and then went to a Mogao Buddhist Grotto that they are restoring.  The lines were super long and we got so tired of just standing around.  We left there about 3 p.m. so we could go ride camels.

At the Mogao Grotto.  The guy in the lower left corner is Marvin Wu, out tour operator.

More Grotto

More of the Grotto.

It is a huge complex that is partly being restored and partly lived in by some monks.

This part of the Grotto didn't have as many people in it, but you can still see lots of people walking around.

These people are lined up to see one of the shrines in here.  The Buddhist Statues in this are are still in place because it is not as heavily Muslim as the other areas were.  The frescoes are amazing also.

We were almost to the place to go ride camels, when the bus got in an accident.  A guy crossed over the double yellow line and tried to cut in front of the bus.  He knew he shouldn’t have done it, but what made it all worse, was the guy’s wife gets out of the back of the car and starts yelling at out bus driver for ruining their vacation!  Another time that I was glad I couldn’t speak Chinese because Marvin told us later that some of the language she was using was equivalent to the F word here.  We had to get out and walk the rest of the way to the place.  There we were divided up into groups of 5 and sent with a camel wrangler to get us on the camels.  It seemed to be one big long continuous line of camel riders.  This place has around 700 camels that they rotate around on all day long.  They were still going strong there when we left at 6:30.  And, it was fun.  My camera died just as I was getting a movie about David’s camel getting up from the ground, so that was the end of pictures for that day. 

The line of camels going up the sand mountain and back down.  We didn't see a camel spit.  Sorry, Caleb.

This was the area that the camel wranglers brought you do to get on the camels.  The people with the orange boots on were people that also climbed up the mountain to slide down it. 

And, away one group of five goes.

After the ride, we walked to the Shrine at an oasis called, Crescent Lake.  It was very pretty and looked so inviting, but we were getting tired by this time from the lack of sleep and the need for supper.

Made it to the hotel and got in our rooms.  The bus drove us down to a Muslim street market so that we could get some dinner.  We found some yummy pita and beef pockets and also something that was very much like fry bread with jam in the middle.  We got more than one of those!  Now we are super tired, dirty and wanting showers!