( excerpts from my travel journal; please excuse the grammar and such; I have little wifi to check it)
(06-04 Turpan- Liuyang by train-Dun Huang by car)
After an early rise on to a cold train station at half past 5. A cosy train compartment, lace curtains with embroidered camels, hot water.....and the toilet next door.....couldn't be better.
The landscape: Taklamakan desert with bare brown/ yellowish rocks, hills; small villages, occasional rows of fruit trees and a kind of hothouses, build of two or more rows of concrete snd covered by cloth.
As the train halts there're food vendors on the quays.I buy a meal: rice with egg/ tomato, celery sticks, tofu.
By mid afternoon the train rolls from the Taklamakan - into the Gobi desert and the small tonw Liuyang, province Gănsū. It looks rather forbidding, these dark sparsely vegetated sands and -storms. The only thing to see are the wooden poles for electricity. I could imagine it being a landscape after a disaster.
The driver buys gaz and we have to exit the car while filling up. After 130 kilometer there's life in the desert, near Dun Huang; plastic hothouses, trees and shrubbery. In the hotel, a young girl hands us hot towels to freshen up and there's something unknown in the room, a" fire escape hood": looks like a kind of gaz mask with a tinfoil hood.
Dunhuang or 'Blazing Beacon'(pop. 187,578), is an oasis in the Gobi desert. For ages it is the western gate to China. Men lived there in 2000 B.C. It lies strategically at the crossroads of the ancient Southern Silk Route and the main road leading from India via Lhasa to Mongolia and Southern Siberia. It is also known for the numerous ancient Buddhist caves nearby.
Buddhism in China: enters China in 1-2nd century A.D. Merchants of the Silk Road are important in the spread of it, as they support their monastries and in return have a safe haven along the way. Direct contact between Indian and Chinese Buddhism continues throughout the 3rd-7th century (Tang period). In the 4th century Chinese pilgrims travel to northern India, their source of Buddhism, to get more access to original sutra's, the canonical scriptures.( see also "Journey to the West" by Wu Cheng-en)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West
During the 9th century(Tang-era), Emperor Wuzong and the Muslim rulers of Central Asia represses Buddhism.
(07-04 Dunhuang)
Cold today, 13 C. Before the Chinese breakfast of vegetables, dumpling, egg and tea, a girl in a red/ gold kimono welcomes/ bows to the guests.
After Kashgar and Turpan, Dun Huang is a Chinese town. Is's street lights are ( metal) Chinese lanterns and the streetsigns are no longer in Uyghur. I am going to see one of the highlights in this region today; the Mogao caves.
In the 4th century an important buddhist center develops in this region, with numerous caves; the first ones build in 366 A.D. The most important are the 775 Caves of the Thousand Buddhas or Mogao Caves. They are known for their fine examples of the Buddhist art, spanning 1000 years, and for the sealed, hidden ( not certain why) hoard of manuscripts.
In 1900 an important cache of manuscripts is discovered in the "Library Cave", walled-up in the 11th century. Almost all of that library is sold in those days by the Chinese who finds it; a small part remains in China. Up to 50,000 manuscripts from the 5-11th century in Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Sanskrit, Sogdian and Khotanese on hemp, silk and paper. The material gives a fascinating view on the 5-11th century society: secular works as anthologies, glossaries, political matters, Taoďst and Confucian. But also religious(Buddhist, Christian) of northern China and religions of other Central Asian kingdoms.It includes the earliest printed book, the Diamond Sutra of 868 A.D., translated into Sanskrit in the 4th century.
From the 80-ies this complex of caves is an Unesco World Heritage site. In the bare desert landscape it doesn't look like much. All one sees from the outside are three rows of holes in rocks and a few small stupa's, that contain buddhist relics.
I'll see the museum next to the caves, where some of the niches of the caves are reconstructed. That is; the caves that were crumbling. Overall it is a good museum that shows the history of, the restoration and research.
With a guide I see about 10 of the most important caves and really, it is a marvel to behold. These caves are from top to bottom decorated with beautiful colored Buddha's, Bodhisatva's, scenes from ancient indian buddhist tales and portraits of the benefactors of the caves. There are niches with sculptures of Buddha's in it, flanked by deďties and others.
I am in awe at seeing the 10- tiers pagoda with a statue of an inmense 34,5 meter Buddha (the third biggest in China), and a sleeping one of 11 meter with 72 disciples. Most of the things are in a reasonable state, bright colors. And I see the Library cave, that contained all those scriptures. The guide is somewhat bitter about the loss of the manuscripts for China, but there are two sides to this story, I guess. There happens to be a Greek tourist in the tour around the caves and I mumble 'Elgin marbles', which sets him a rumbling about the lost treasures of Greece. Well.......
And I buy two books, a stack of postcards and carefully circle the numbers of the caves I've seen for future reference. Marvellous all.
(Tomorrow by train to Jiayuguan)
In my cup: Nescafé