Larry and Spencer Go to Xinjiang, China

or 10 Days West of Fast Food

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Dunhuang, Gansu Province, July 26-27, 2001:  We had planned only one day to tour Dunhuang.  This town is famous for three things:
a.  The Grottoes of One Thousand Buddhas
b.  The Great Wall of China ends here
c.  This is the location of the joining of the north and south routes of the Silk Road.
It served also as a good lesson why American tourists should try to be well informed before coming to China.  Our tourguide in this town, as in all the others, was a government employee who main job is to provide a bright picture of China and make sure we shop at least once in the overpriced, government owned "Friendship Stores".  He did not know until I told him about the location of the Great Wall in that area or of the Silk Road connection.

 
The guide took us to see the Grottoes only to hand us over to another tour guide whose English was better and knowledge slightly better.  She showed us about 20 of the 1,000 grottoes.  When I asked about what damage the Red Guards may have done during the Cultural Revolution, she said only that they had done no damage because they appreciated the value of the grottoes!  Since the whole point of the Revolution was to eradicate cultural features such as this one, I was a little skeptical.

Later we found out that heavy damage had been done by the Red Guards to hundreds of the grottoes not open to tourists.  In fairness, European explorers and one American archeologist had also participated in removing parts of the grottoes early in the 20th Century including taking priceless documents.  There was a joint team of American and Chinese college students on the site restoring several of the grottoes.
 
 

  
STANDING IN FRONT OF THE LARGEST OF THE GROTTOES.  THIS STRUCTURE COVERS A 35 m TALL BUDDHA, THE SECOND TALLEST IN THE WORLD

 
This website contains a lot of pictures of China that may give the impression that it is pretty throughout.  While much of the scenery is spectacular, much is not.  Environmental damage, trash, soot, pollution, and other junk can be seen all over the desert and in the cities.

Dunhuang was probably the nicest, most prosperous small city we saw in China, but it's outskirts and those of Urumqi, Shanghai, and Beijing all have scenes such as this one to the left.
The final stop on our China tour would be Beijing.  Neil, Larry, and I had been there before, but Spencer could not come all this way and not see the Great Wall.  So, after 1 day and night in Dunhuang, we were off to Beijing.