Silk Road Adventure: Day 5 Jaruguan to Dunhuang

We arrived to Jaruguan rather late and decided to skip it and visit it on the way back. We made a quick trip out to the fort, did some shopping and returned to our hotel. We got up really early and found that it had snowed the night before. Wow, a snowstorm in the middle of the Gobi Desert.





We left Jaruguan really early, so we did not eat breakfast. We stopped at around 9 A.M. at a tiny little desert town for breakfast. Nothing fancy but a bit expensive as this appeared to be the only "game in town."







The 380 KM between Jaruguan and Dunhuang is totally different than what we saw in the Hexi Corredor. The landscape is breathtaking with the foreground of desert and a background of multi-colored mountains.









As we got closer to our destination of Dunhuang, the desert appeared to become flatter and the moutains seemed more distant.








The mutli-colored horizon and changing nature of the desert around us was hard to describe. This was different than anything we had seen previous.









About halfway to Dunhuang we came across this strange pagoda out in the middle of nowhere. I was able to get three or four photos of it as we flew by. Even in this picture, it looks like a cardboard cutout but it was a real pagoda.







Again we stopped at one of the tiny desert town for lunch. The snow had stopped and the roads were drying out. The place was not impressive and the food was not cheap.






Just as we turned off the main highway to head south to Dunhuang we got a glimpse of our first camel. He (or she) was drinking at a small pond and did not seem to care if we took pictures. Scroungy looking thing, isn't it?









As we got closer to Dunhuang we began to see human inhabitants. This is the typical dried mud brick house found throughout the area. This particular photo was taken about 15 miles or so outside Dunhuang. I really liked the snow-capped moutains in the background.







Upon arriving in Dunhuang, we immediately found a hotel and headed to the famous sand dunes called Mingshan. This was a tourist attraction with giant "Lawrence of Arabia" sand dunes surrounding an ancient temple and oasis spring pond. It cost us 80 yuan each to get in but the guide books said we definitely should go see this area so we paid our money. We could have ridden camels into the dunes but instead opted for golf carts.




The place was a bit disappointing. The temple complex was very pleasant but things were just too commercial. It did not seem real. Oh, the dunes were real and the ancient temple was real, but the overall effect was just too commercial. We could have ridden camels, slid down the dunes and do a dozen other things but, we are not kids anymore.






Instead of participating in the local activities we walked around and took a lot of pictures. It was very cold and their was a fair breeze so it was not that comfortable. I would have given this a pass, especially if I had known what was ahead of us after Korla.





Just a pleasant (but expensive) place to relax and walk around.