The legendary singing sand dunes outside of Dunhuang, China were not singing for me but they were not entirely silent, either. They say the desert sings of lost Silk Road traveler’s ghosts whose lives were taken by bandits or thirst or starvation, though it was mostly by the desert windstorms that rose like waves and extinguished all life that wasn’t smart enough to ride it out, yet all I heard were my own thoughts, desert dry, blooming, beckoning onward over the dunes and into what’s next. Once again I had ridden a train westward, and by this time I had figured it out. Leave in the early evening, watch the night gather along the tracks, have dinner in the dining car, then climb into your sleeping berth to read and fall asleep to the rock-a-bye-baby cradling movement of the train and wake up at your destination. This is the only way to ride Chinese trains and cover the vast distances that lie between things. Arriving in Dunhuang, I ignored the swarming taxi touts, wanting to just breathe in the morning. It was clear, fine and inviting. Dunhuang is an oasis surrounded by the Gobi Desert, still surprisingly green in November, though the air was frosty with winter coming. I had no idea how I would get to town, some 13 kilometers away, but was unworried; I had slept through the night dreaming railroad dreams and had awakened at the furthest edge of the ancient Chinese Empire. I could have turned right around, gotten back on a train, and headed home, having at least glimpsed it. I have a perverse contentment in the getting to—the journey is always the main thing, the destination a bonus. And what a bonus Dunhuang was. The friendliness began when two women approached me rather timidly, smiling and saying, “Taxi.” I asked how much. It was a communal cab and they were just trying to fill it up, charging me only 10 RMB ($1.63). It was a great, fair deal, and I smiled and accepted. Against my protest, they carried my bag to the taxi and stashed it in the trunk. Then, we whisked away down the broad boulevard to the center of Dunhuang, past repetitive China Bank signs positioned about every hundred yards. When we got to town, the woman taxi driver drove me to where I wanted to go, first, an honor that none of the other passengers objected to, and I bowed deeply upon exiting, thankful for such a gracious gesture and welcome to Dunhuang. The city is laid out with the few major roads running north-south, but the majority of the streets running east-west, the long blocks providing cooling shade in the summer though a little brisk on an early November morning. As I walked I was pleased to discover they had signs along the sidewalk in English as well as Chinese, directing travelers to points of interest, such as hotels and restaurants and the Nuisance Free Agricultural Product Market. I was impatient to get out into the desert so I took the first decent-looking hotel I came across, then found decent coffee a few doors away at an Aili Bakery, after which I loaded up on almonds and golden raisins (which came in six different varieties) at a shop filled with bright displays of red dates, pistachios, walnuts, local yoghurt, dried apricots and fruit of all kinds, spices and tea, like Ali Baba’s local market, then found breakfast at a place advertising ‘Snacks’ where the woman owner fussed over me in a good way and loaded my plate with local Dunhuang delicacies. Knowing I needed to head south, I followed a river past newer apartment blocks and through an old section of town, past poems of laundry hanging out to dry, brown desert baked brick hovels with smoky chimneys, asking directions by drawing a camel, a dune, and a crescent-shaped lake, the locals laughing and drawing maps in return, and ran into a young boy eager to practice his English who repeated every phrase he knew, was delighted he could point me in the right direction, then ran back to his house to tell his family how he provided assistance to a wandering laowai. The family all came out to verify it, and I happily waved and marched onward. I got to a place with an unrestricted view of the dunes, that were still pretty far off, sought out an intersection, where I realized I had wandered in a big loop and was on the same street as my hotel. I hailed a taxi and we made the drive to the dunes. Known formally as the Mingshashan—Yueyaquan National Park, or informally as the Singing Sand Dunes at Crescent Lake or Echoing Sand Mountain or the Mingsha Sand Dunes or Resounding Sand Hill, no matter what you call it, it is amazing. The wide boulevard called Mingshan south road ends at the dunes that rise up and sweep away to the left and right. After exiting the taxi, a wizened old man beckoned me over and tried to explain some kind of deal he was offering. Not having fallen off the rice boat only recently, and having been prepared by the touts met in all parts of the world who gather wherever there are tourists, my shields were up, but I listened. It seemed he was offering me a tour where he could circumvent the park entry fee, but it was so unclear that I politely shook him off and made my way to the park entrance. All along the way, others accosted me, trying to sell me the same deal, waving printed material at me, which I in turn repeatedly misinterpreted, then entered the main building and inquired at the English information booth. They couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me what they people outside were offering yet I found out the entry fee to the park was 120 RMB ($19.59). Something made me go back outside to check it out. As I was trying to communicate with a woman waving a magazine at me, three Chinese travelers came up to help. It seems what they were all offering were coupons for money off the entrance fee, where they took a small cut and saved you some money. I asked if it were real, and they all waved their tickets at me, which they had just bought. So used to scams, I hesitated, and they proposed I withhold payment until I had a ticket in hand. So I took the magazine, presented it to the ticket counter, smiled knowingly at another Chinese man who wandered in after me with the same magazine in his hand, and was given a ticket for 70 RMB. Back outside, grinning, I gave the women 20 RMB, having saved 28 RMB, happy in the way humans are always happy when they bend the rules for their own profit, wondering now where to go when the Chinese man behind me at the ticket booth came out and said, “Follow me.” Later, I found out his name was Xuxiangdong, and that I wouldn’t have met him if I didn’t pause to investigate the ticket deal, and that my whole experience there might have been considerably less if I indeed hadn’t met him. Again, he said, “Follow me, follow me,” and I did, into the resounding, echoing, camel crisscrossed, crescent-laked, singing sands, steeped in history, with crumbling ruins, clear blue skies, dark, shadow people on the ridgeline marching into memory, wearing rentable day-glow orange knee socks, floppy sunhats, leaving oval footprints that will be gone by morning, the shifting sands never remembering, never acknowledging, so I was grateful I had a witness, as we gathered ourselves and set off into the day with abundant enthusiasm and good cheer.
2 Comments
Mary
11/13/2013 04:33:58 am
Oh no I can't wait for Part 2 what an exciting journey!! The Dunes are breathtaking. Your journey this time sounds so soothing and well thought out which seemed to all fall in place, (unlike some earlier stories that had us on the edge). I can tell you have learned alot about traveling the trains and cities in China. What a totally different experience with the language barrier in Dunhuang and signs in English. Yes!! Such a gift to have friendly faces and people helping you when you go to the unkown...unknowingly and you are able to trust which is a great human characteristic which we all crave. Unconditional trust we put in humans would be nice if it were always present!! Enjoy your trip and can't wait for Part 2...
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Erika María
11/16/2013 02:15:17 am
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