Dunhuang

Dear all,

After travelling eight hours further into the desert Dunhuang was unexpectedly clean, modern and tidy:

It was more tourist centric than any city since Beijing. There were dozens of places boasting in English  that coffee and wifi was available, though these places were popular with locals too. They charge 20 to 30 yuan for a coffee, the same as the price of dinner. I still paid it, though I'm thinking of hunting down a pack of actual ground coffee and preparing it at breakfast every morning as an alternative to the traditional Chinese hot water (they drink hot water for breakfast).

That evening we wandered round the surprisingly orderly night market, ordered a casserole of unknown content in a small packed restaurant, then tried small sweet bread fried things. After dinner we inspected souvenirs and sultanas. I considered buying sunglasses. After some hesitation they offered an initial price of 260 yuan (£26) for a pair of knockoff Raybans. A group of locals looked on and laughed. I offered 80, they came back with 100. I felt tired and resentful of this somewhat ripoffy interaction and left.

Flying women featured on many plates, carvings and silk paintings. They had long flowing trousers or skirts and occasionally played lutes. I couldn't figure out why.

On our way back to the hotel we found that our women had joined the Chinese women in the "portable stereo on a street corner" line dancing. This practice seemed to be nationwide. I'm gratified every time I see it - after all, why not dance in the street? There's no need to queue for a club or accompany it with beer.

I think the locals were quite tickled by their new guests. They made a date for more line dancing at 8:30 the next evening.

Some of the dancers there (mainly those at the front) were truly excellent and perfectly in sync. I think they do it every night.

The next morning we set off for the Maogao caves, 494 caves containing floor to ceiling Buddhist murals and statues paid for by kings, noblemen and the odd merchant over many centuries. Only twenty were open to the public. We were warned that we could only see these twenty accompanied by a guide; wander off and all doors would be locked to us. Photos were prohibited. We could however bring our own torch. In a dark place this would allow us to make our own inspections of our surroundings.

These are some of the caves that are shut:

I was afraid the restriction of my movements on tour might try my patience but it was not a problem. We visited more caves and stayed longer in each than I expected. I learnt that the most important thing to appreciating the context of the development of the caves was to know your dynasties (I don't). When several centuries separated one cave from the next the styles and scenes often bore little resemblence to each other. Yet they did all depict Buddhas and flying women.

The flying women were Buddhist Angels - or if not angels, at least celestial beings, which is almost the same thing. These Angels are called Apsarasa. Like mermaids, they don't seem to have fully formed legs - they fly so presumably they do not need them. They play various musical instruments and live on air. They are the cohorts of Buddha and Bodhisattvas.

Strangely enough a lot of the Buddhas and other figures were black:

I thought it looked like a painting of an ancient African Buddhist society but the guide informed us that the white lead used as a white pigment had darkened to black in an alkaline environment. But even after I knew this I persisted in imagining ancient African Buddhists.

Often my attention would drift from the long contextualising of certain famous images pointed out by the guide so I would point my (very bright, thanks to extensive comparison shopping) torch at other figures, other murals throughout the room. I did not notice but apparently I was distracting a large part of the group from the object of the guide's discussion with my silent highlighting.

However the guide did tell a short story about a deer goddess that grabbed my attention for a while. It was about a deer who saved a shepherd from a river. They fell in love and had a deer girl together. 

We finished off the guided tour with a quick visit to the reclining Buddha - a Buddha who has attained Nirvana and so no longer moves. This large Buddha has high historical and touristic value and so they are trying to minimise the time people spend breathing near it. The carbon dioxide is bad for the rock. We were introduced to the Buddha using a picture outside the cave, after which we quickly filed into and out of the cave in silence. The guide told one of our group that eventually all caves would be shut. The tours would be of pictures and reproductions and tourists would not enter the caves. Like the buried painted terracotta warriors, it is of paramount importance that the colours remain hidden so that they will never fade.

When we returned to the hotel I felt very tired. I chatted with my latest roommate Tom for a while, then Tom left and I was left by myself. Instead of participating in further touristic activities I sat and reflected alone, a task facilitated by writing a long email to a friend.

That evening four of our group of fifteen went to a show. Myles, our guide, had told us that the show involved acrobatics, dance and a story. That was all we knew about it, which perhaps accounted for the poor attendance. I went because I was curious about what Chinese show would involve and because I like watching women dance in pretty costumes.

The screen in front of the stage had the mural of a deer and a shepherd that I had seen in the caves. I had a good feeling about this show. Perhaps there would not be an evil queen, a brave knight and simple village folk.

It opened with a dance that seemed to involve small children dressed as rabbits stuck in bins. That was a little too funny but it settled down into more traditional acrobatics with more flying and costume changes than I had thought possible:

That's the king of the Western Regions (which I took to be Xinjiang, the Uighur autonomous region we'd be entering the next day) who helped the dear deer girl with some soldiers and a couple of fluffy camels.

Here's the bad guys:

They are fire devils and look a little like Jafar from Aladdin. Spiky, black and red must be a universal signal for evil.

At end the women attempted to represent the thousand handed and thousand eyed goddess of mercy  (she has eyes on her hands):

At another point they dressed as the Bodhisattvas I had seen in the caves. They didn't black up at any point. Unlike many of the depictions of bodhisattvas and angels I'd seen in the market, they were staying accurate to the original unoxidised white rather than the oxidised black lead murals.

Here's the final bows:

The locals barely clapped and left before the cast had finished bowing. I'm not used to that.

Stephen