Dunes, Camels, Buddhas

Monday morning we took the bus to the desert (different desert) to see the sand dunes. We rode camels to the top of the dunes, which were much bigger than I had expected. I had always envisioned a sand dune being 50 feet high at the most, like a big wave. The bigger ones at this desert were probably 500 feet. So that was cool, except for the Chinese tendency to find a place that could be absolutely stunning in it’s own silence and grandeur, and fill it with tourists, megaphones, gift shops, and other forms of noise. Also, I noticed that the desert is very large. Huge, in fact. There’s an unlimited amount of other places we could entered the desert from. But being tourists as we were, he had to buy tickets, go through a turnstile, and crowd together on one noisy dune. Why not just park anywhere on the roads surrounding the desert and walk in on your own, you ask? Because that would make too much sense.

An old man sweeping the desert. Can't you just hear him? "F-ing sand. I'll never get this place clean."

In the afternoon we went to see the Buddhist grottoes that were carved out of a mountainside, not unlike those that our friends in the Taliban were so intent on destroying a few years ago. They were really grand, but I didn’t really find them that interesting, for some reason. Maybe it was the crowds and megaphones.

Another bus ride through the desert, and we were at the train station for another overnight train to Turpan, in Xin Jiang. These deserts were actually pretty interesting to see as we drove through, because every one was different. Sometimes it would be light brown, and flat, with no sign of life or civilization as far as the eye could see. Sometimes there would be little shrubs poking out of the dry earth. Other times there would be small dunes, or the sand would turn a darker, blacker brown. Every time it was a different variation on the same theme.