Silk road-Day 2

The next morning we woke up at 4am to pack up camp and take the bus to go ride camels to the singing sand dunes to watch the sun rise. We got to the camel rising place to catch our camel tour and there were so many camels sleeping in this yard. About 600 sleepy camels. It’s not true what they say about camels being mean. They’re incredibly sweet creatures. Well, at least these ones were. I’m sure they were VERY used to tourists. Also, when you think about it from the point of view of a camel, carting tourists around for a few hours every morning before it gets too hot is probably preferable to the year round, all day, every day, thousands of miles long, caravan trips where they are weighted down by all of the products traded on the silk road and aren’t given very much water or rest…but I’m getting off topic.

I didn’t take any pictures of the camels because I was terrified of getting sand in my lens and breaking my camera like a few of my friends had. I decided that a very sleepy me was not responsible enough to avoid this, so I left it safely in its little ziplock baggie. Also, the picture of the view from the top of where ever I am is never as good as the real thing. But I can say that the sunrise over the sand dunes was incredible, even if I kept nodding off. After the sun rose we went down this slide on inner tubes, the kind that you would use for snow tubing. It was awesomely fast, but I had to close my eyes because the sand was flying up into my face.

After going back to Dunhuang, food at the hotel (I still don’t understand the appeal of HOT orange juice), and trying to get the sand out of our clothes and hair, we went to the Mogao caves. First started in 366 AD, these Buddhist caves were carved out of the rock and contain incredible paintings and statues of Buddhas. The tour was a bit excuiating as we were exhausted and the tour guide kept saying “oh and this next cave is even more beautiful because of this and this…” It got old. Fast. Yay for falling asleep on my feet! Cameras weren’t allowed inside, but here’s a picture of the outside:

Later that night back in Dunhuang, we walked around the market again. It’s even more alive at night. We got these super delicious (hen hao chi!) 9 kuai (about $1.50) noodles that they made in front of us. They were fried with beef in this awesome soy sauce. The rest of the evening we just wandered around the market taking in the sights and sounds as vendors called out into the night. Even if it was a little touristy, some parts of the market kind of gave me a sense of stepping back in time when this market used to be the last stop of caravans before they left China.