Should we flood the Sistine Chapel…
In the 1960’s some publicist working for the Bureau of Reclamation decided to tout the benefits of flooding yet another part of the Colorado River, by announcing with a flourish that boaters would be able to get closer, to appreciate what remained of the landscape. The Sierra Club responded with advertisements under the headline, “Should we flood the Sistine Chapel so tourists can get a better look at the ceiling?”
This phrase might return to mind on viewing the Yadan landforms west of Dunhuang. The yadan are siltstones eroded by wind and water into fantastical shapes, but unlike the spires of Bryce, they only rise a few meters above a sea of sand, giving the impression that Cedar Breaks or Pinnacles has been flooded by some mad dam project and you’re seeing only the top of what remains.
A couple days ago the hotel told us it would cost 800 yuan to take a car out to the Yadan Landforms Geologic Park, the local Monument Valley. A travel agency said 700. Yesterday we hailed a taxi outside the hotel and the driver said 400. Cool. She drove to some obscure side street, and switched drivers (I’m guessing her husband), who topped off his diesel tank and his natural gas tank, and drove us 180 km out into the desert.
On the way out, we stopped at the Yumen Pass, a ruin of a small fortification, and a section of the Han Great Wall, a ruin of a six-foot thick structure made of mud and straw, nothing like the wall near Beijing pictured above.
At Yadan Park, we were herded onto a small tour bus, which drove too fast over too bumpy roads to take any pictures of the beautiful scenery; it stopped and within five minutes they wanted us back on the bus. So it went for an additional stop.
At the third stop, a few people who knew a few English words told us the guide had said “thirty minutes”. So we started hiking out into the pretty rocks, got some nice pictures and some exercise in the hot sun, and returned pretty much on time.
There was a quick fourth stop, and then the bus drove back to the visitor center. But we wanted more. So we hung around and looked confused, and finally someone told us we could go out in a Jeep for 300 yuan (about $45, pretty expensive fun) for an hour. And it was fun, and we got some more nice pictures, and the thrill of almost getting stuck in the sand, but alas, it was over way too soon.
We could have gotten the Jeeps at the third rest stop, but didn’t have the language skills to figure that out in the first place. We wouldn’t have gotten the long walk in the rocks, but we might have gotten to see more in the Jeep.
It was a bit of Utah or Arizona in a trip which has been largely Nevada for the last several days. The park isn’t open at sunrise or sunset, the best times to take pictures of eroded geography, but the discrete puffy clouds were making some nice shadows anyway.
On the way back, the driver asked if we wanted to see Hecang City, a ruin of a Han storehouse 13 km off the road, and we said OK. We took some pictures while the driver talked to an old lady who lived in a house next to the ruin. When we were done, he invited us up to the house, split a melon with us, bought a huge bag of salt from the lady, and refilled all our water from her well. She had a pretty good-sized garden. The house was an adobe just like anywhere in New Mexico. She also had a bunch of potted cactus plants which she’d better not let out into the wild or else they’ll take over.
So after having made the taxi driver wait for our extra jeep ride, and after having the delightful visit at the lady’s house, we gave him 600, and he seemed happy.
Today was spent mostly in the hotel writing postcards and sleeping — tomorrow we won’t have one and I wanted to take advantage of it. In the late afternoon we went to Dunhuang’s major tourist trap, the Crescent Moon Lake and Singing Sands Mountain. $20 per person to get in. Once you get in, you can pay even more for camel rides on the dunes, to walk up steps on the dunes instead of on sand, to toboggan down the dunes. It was pretty cute, but we did get some major exercise eschewing all of the above and just walking to the top of a ridge. They must not have many sand dunes and camels in China, since it seems like such a big deal here. The tourist map lists stuffed camels as one of the major things to shop for here (along with “luminous cups” made of jade). It also lists dried apricots as one of the major local delicacies, and we bought a bag.
We’ve eaten in the hotel restaurant the last couple nights, which specializes in Sichuan cooking, a destination that was sadly dropped from our plans during the visa confusion. Ray is very smart and insists that we only order two things because that is all that is possible to eat due to the huge portions. But I like variety so I often order three or four, hoping against hope that one or two of them will be small. Tonight, after all the sand dune exercise, we got tofu soup, greens, a mushroom clay pot, and twice cooked pork with wheat buns. Everything was enormous, and we weren’t able to finish. Sigh — I hate to throw away food.
After we check out of the hotel tomorrow morning, we’ll explore some other random attractions, and then get on the overnight train to Urumqi, a city in the province of Xinjiang where we’ll join the eclipse tour.