Moving On to...

Standing in the desertscape outside Hotan it was hard to remember exactly how long it had been since I got to this province. It feels like I've spent an eternity here. The last few days had been spent with Hye-Jeong, Wooki and Rene going on wild goose chases for desert ruins with strange taxi drivers, learning to use chopsticks the Korean way, going to the magnificent Sunday bazaar, seeing a man with his right leg literally rotting off and drinking under the gigantic bronze Mao statue whilst Wooki promised me golden chopsticks as he poured me bamboo liquor in his shot glass with his left hand supporting his right elbow. I didn't cross any borders but I was in a completely different country where the locals kept feeding me and the backpackers had stories to tell.

The travellers were a different breed from the backpacking circuit out east. Most of the people I met had either just come out of Pakistan because they were delivering aid to villages in the hills that had been affected by last year's earthquake and were still rebuilding. Or they had just crossed from Kyrgyzstan after trekking through Central Asia. Or there was the smiling Korean cyclist on his way to Lhasa without any information other than a map. Or the quiet Japanese man travelling overland to Afghanistan for the second time in two years. The German on his way to Mount Kailash via the backroad. There was the Swede that had just been to Afghanistan with stories about the craziness of Turkmenistan's current ruler. Their stories went beyond getting drunk at the bar and then seeing the Terracotta Warriors with a hangover. It was a nice reprieve for a moment before heading back into that other world.

That other world is curiously hard to get to. For some reason it takes 20 hours on a train to travel 500km in China. I haven't slept in a bed for the last three nights and am currently in need of a shower. On the last train ride a coiffed Chinese lady took to pinching my cheeks, pulling on the hair on my arms, slapping my butt and feeding me cookies. There were 8 hours to waste between that ride and the bus I had to take next. What better way to spend the day then just approaching strangers and going to see the Mogao Caves (aka The Thousand Buddha Caves) in Dunhuang with some German people.* The 500 caves are probably the greatest repository of Buddhist art in the world. They are stunning. The work ranges from the 4th century AD to the 11 century. Unfortunately lots has been defaced by Muslims, the Culutral Revolutionaries (which the tour guide said nothing about at all) and the gwai-los from the West. Thanks to these white devils the British Museum has a large collection of the manuscripts that used to be hidden in the Library Cave and Havard has a statue along with some murals. The Louvre also partook in the pillaging. Thankfully there were a lot of sculptures and murals they couldn't get out of the caves.

The overnight bus ride was cold and I'm still nowhere near where I want to be...maybe tomorrow.



*German is turning out to be a very useful language on my travels. I think I've met up with people from das Vaterland in every country so far.