I’ve been back in Beijing for two weeks and I haven't written anything down. Mostly because I’ve been busy with random things…but deep inside, I’m not sure how to summarize or write up this past month I spent in the village.
Words cannot really describe my feelings. I miss the students at the school, my team and all the wonderful people I got to know. To say the least, the one month in Henan was the best month I’ve had since college graduation. I don’t think I’ve ever been that happy.
The library we built turned out to be a huge success. However, as we got to know the students more and visited their homes, we realized there’s really not much we can do to change their lives…except for showing them more love (which is quite useless when it comes to helping them with their lives). We (my team) felt helpless as we discussed the issues related to rural education over and over again. The kids still text me and call me almost everyday but now I have a really hard time finding things to say to them...I'm such a bad big sister.
I haven’t done much in Beijing these two weeks. Just getting facials, spas, seeing shows and hanging out with friends (yeah, so lame)…I don't like the city life but it took me no time to get back used to it. Thinking about the kids makes me feel so guilty. I’ll have to write a detailed blog on my experience in Henan once I settle down in Taipei and have more time to concentrate on things. I’ve been sick since my last couple of days in Henan and still haven’t recovered. People have been telling me it’s fatal to go to Tibet when I cough like this…I guess we’ll see :/
Off to Tibet I go tomorrow. My dream is finally coming true :)
P.S. Sorry if I haven’t responded to some of your emails. Things have been kinda crazy and I promise I will get back to you when I get back.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Crossing Gobi and Visiting Mogao Caves
(Hi guys, unfortch I'm running out of time. So I won't be updating the rest of my Dunhuang trip until I get back from Henan at the end of June. I need to pack and get move into a hotel with the rest of the volunteers to start training tomorrow. Email me though!)
Please read from the bottom...This is the second post from my trip. I still have a few more days to update.
The wind was very very harsh. I thought my face was going to be ruined once I came out of the desert. It definitely felt like knives cutting through my skin. I just kept reminding myself how I always longed to be in a desert and really…I asked for it. I can get plenty of facials afterwards but I cannot buy an experience like that, right? :)
You have to follow a guide who takes you to only 10 caves. You could follow another guide to see more caves (each guide usually shows different caves) if you want to see more. I ended up following two guides.
Here’s a brief history of the caves from Wiki: According to local legend, in 366 AD a Buddhist monk, Lè Zūn (樂尊), had a vision of a thousand Buddhas and inspired the excavation of the caves he envisioned. The number of temples eventually grew to more than a thousand.[3] As Buddhist monks valued austerity in life, they sought retreat in remote caves to further their quest for enlightenment. From the 4th until the 14th century, Buddhist monks at Dunhuang collected scriptures from the west while many pilgrims passing through the area painted murals inside the caves. The cave paintings and architecture served as aids to meditation, as visual representations of the quest for enlightenment, as mnemonic devices, and as teaching tools to inform illiterate Chinese about Buddhist beliefs and stories.
The murals cover 450,000 square feet (42,000 m²). The caves were walled off sometime after the 11th century after they had become a repository for venerable, damaged and used manuscripts and hallowed paraphernalia.
The most famous cave is the cave where the Buddist manuscripts were hidden (藏经洞)．When this cave was first discovered, there were at least 50,000 rolls of manuscripts. However, the Taoist monk (王道士）who discovered the cave was illiterate and did not understand the value of these manuscripts. So he picked the nicest ones to sell in exchange for money to maintain the caves (good intention though). Since most of the manuscripts have been sold to or stolen by people from England, USA, Japan, Russia, etc., all there is left in China is about 8000 rolls of less valuable ones…
Dunhuang is famous for its grapes. Since it’s not the grape season yet, raisins will have to do. These are the best raisins I’ve ever had!
Having a drink with the woman who made the raisins herself! The drink was made out of 锁阳 （Songaria Cynomorium Herb）, really good for men apparently ;)
Souvenirs I got. Dunhuang is famous for its “ink jade, 墨玉” which comes from the Qilian Snow mountains. Ever heard of the poem "琵琶美酒夜光杯"? Yep, that's what these are for. I'm going to try pouring wine in these and pretend I was one of those romantic literatis, lol
Post cards! These are all photos of things from the caves, ranging from all different dynasties. Enlarge to see the details or google Mogao caves to see more!
Yummy food I had on that day… Leah I made sure to take pix of all the food just for you! :)
Visited a local camera repair store to fix my digital camera. The inside of my camera was covered in sand when the girl opened it up…
Please read from the bottom...This is the second post from my trip. I still have a few more days to update.
I got on the road around 4am to cross the Gobi desert (from Dunhang city to the Mogao caves – shortest way to cross the desert) in hope to see the sunrise. But nope, it didn’t happen because the wind never stopped from the previous day! So in the end, I didn’ get to see neither the sunset nor the sunrise in the desert…argh?
There was just endless desert... nothing else... I definitely had a lot of time to reflect on things but didn't accomplish much because it was freezing and my brain was numb -_-
The experience was amazing. I was in the desert…alone (well there was a camel guide who came with me but still) riding on a camel…for almost three hours.
Even though I went prepared, it was still freezing cold, as mentioned earlier. I wish I brought a pair of gloves. Other than that, everything was fine.
When I first entered the desert, for a while, all I could see was Chinese style graves. But (according to movies I’ve seen such as 倩女幽魂, ghosts usually start returning to 阴间 (the other world) around 5am, so I kept telling myself that it was okay. Still kind of scary though because it was dark for a while. I didn't take any picture in the dark, I'm usually not superstitious but didn't want to risk anything!
The wind was very very harsh. I thought my face was going to be ruined once I came out of the desert. It definitely felt like knives cutting through my skin. I just kept reminding myself how I always longed to be in a desert and really…I asked for it. I can get plenty of facials afterwards but I cannot buy an experience like that, right? :)
Here's a video. You can hear the wind blowing in the background.
Then once I got to the other side, I visited the most famous Buddhist heritage site in China: the Mogao caves! They prohibit people from taking cameras inside the caves so I unfortunately didn’t get to take any pictures. But here are some pictures of the outside of the caves. The doors were of course built in later, not from the ancient times. There are 495 caves currently (used to be over 1200 but most have been destroyed either by weather or people). The oldest caves here date back to at least 1000 years ago.
You have to follow a guide who takes you to only 10 caves. You could follow another guide to see more caves (each guide usually shows different caves) if you want to see more. I ended up following two guides.
If you want to visit the caves, you should do it now. People who work there told me that in 2 or 3 years the government will prohibit people from actually going into the caves in an effort to preserve these wonders.
Here’s a brief history of the caves from Wiki: According to local legend, in 366 AD a Buddhist monk, Lè Zūn (樂尊), had a vision of a thousand Buddhas and inspired the excavation of the caves he envisioned. The number of temples eventually grew to more than a thousand.[3] As Buddhist monks valued austerity in life, they sought retreat in remote caves to further their quest for enlightenment. From the 4th until the 14th century, Buddhist monks at Dunhuang collected scriptures from the west while many pilgrims passing through the area painted murals inside the caves. The cave paintings and architecture served as aids to meditation, as visual representations of the quest for enlightenment, as mnemonic devices, and as teaching tools to inform illiterate Chinese about Buddhist beliefs and stories.
The murals cover 450,000 square feet (42,000 m²). The caves were walled off sometime after the 11th century after they had become a repository for venerable, damaged and used manuscripts and hallowed paraphernalia.
The most famous cave is the cave where the Buddist manuscripts were hidden (藏经洞)．When this cave was first discovered, there were at least 50,000 rolls of manuscripts. However, the Taoist monk (王道士）who discovered the cave was illiterate and did not understand the value of these manuscripts. So he picked the nicest ones to sell in exchange for money to maintain the caves (good intention though). Since most of the manuscripts have been sold to or stolen by people from England, USA, Japan, Russia, etc., all there is left in China is about 8000 rolls of less valuable ones…
Dunhuang is famous for its grapes. Since it’s not the grape season yet, raisins will have to do. These are the best raisins I’ve ever had!
Having a drink with the woman who made the raisins herself! The drink was made out of 锁阳 （Songaria Cynomorium Herb）, really good for men apparently ;)
Not the season for grapes but definitely the season for other types of fruits. Yum!
Souvenirs I got. Dunhuang is famous for its “ink jade, 墨玉” which comes from the Qilian Snow mountains. Ever heard of the poem "琵琶美酒夜光杯"? Yep, that's what these are for. I'm going to try pouring wine in these and pretend I was one of those romantic literatis, lol
Post cards! These are all photos of things from the caves, ranging from all different dynasties. Enlarge to see the details or google Mogao caves to see more!
Flying apsaras. I overheard a girl calling these "cheerleaders." I think it fits perfectly because this is what they do!
Yummy food I had on that day… Leah I made sure to take pix of all the food just for you! :)
凉皮 weishi ;)
What's inside? Pork and scallon. You dip these in spicy sauce
These dumplings were so good that I had to go back to the restaurant for a second time.
Visited a local camera repair store to fix my digital camera. The inside of my camera was covered in sand when the girl opened it up…
OK, more to come later.
Ming Sha Sand Dunes
I’m back in Beijing. Where to begin…the trip was amazing!!!! First off, I’m safe. Thanks to those who texted and checked on me while I was on the road. To those who emailed me, I will respond to your emails soon! I start training for the volunteer program on 5/23 and will be staying in a hotel with the rest of the volunteers. I will head off to Henan on 5/26 and will be there for a month but I’ll have my iPhone on me so stay in touch!
Here’s a brief summary of what happened on this trip (this post is only about the first day of my trip. It's taking up way too much time to upload the pix so I'll post about the other days later)
- Transportation used this week: camel, horse, motorcycle, car, bus, train and air plane. Let me know if there’s anything else I missed but should try ;)
- Climed a sand mountain in the Ming Sha sand dunes, crossed the Gobi desert and part of the Qilian snow mountains to see the 7.1 glacier.
- Saw three of the most famous Passes (customs in ancient China) in China.
- Broke one digital camera (the new Canon one) and one slr lens (the Nikon one)
- Spent most on entrance fees (it’s ridiculous!! Nothing’s under 100 rmb. I remember back when people could do a lot with 100 rmb…now it’s nothing! Current conversion rate: 1usd =6.6 rmb)
- Got chased by a Tibetan mastiff - scariest thing ever happened to me I think...
- Got free lunch and dinner multiple times because the locals kept treating me :)
- Made friends with backpackers from LA, India, Gansu, Anhui, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Sichuan, Shandong and Tianjin.
- Questions I got asked the most: Why would you want to travel along? Aren’t you scared? You’ve really got some guts to do this on your own. Where are your parents (most people thought I was 18 or 19. The oldest people thought was 22. Should I be flattered or sad that I still look like a kid?!)
So first I arrived in the Dunhuang airport in the middle of the Gobi desert. I was so excited to be in the middle of nowhere! And this is basically how I felt throughout the entire trip: by myself, alone, in the middle of no where…and super excited!
Here’s a picture of the gate of Dunhuang city. It’s typical for cities in western China to have gates like this. (took it on a cab so sorry for the bad quality)
The symbolic Feitian (flying apsaras, 飞天) statue of Dunhuang. There are paintings of these everywhere in the Mogao caves (the most famous buddhist heritage site in China, located in Dunhuang). In Buddhism, flying aparas only appear when the Buddhas are doing their sermons and reading the sutras.
My trip began with the Ming Sha sand dunes (鸣沙山). Ming Sha literally means “echoes of sands.” You can hear the sound of the sands echoing when there’s wind. In the middle of the desert, there’s the “Crescent Moon Lake (月牙泉),”which is a lake in the shape of a crescent moon. Because of its unique geographical location, the sands never get in the lake and the water has remained crystal clear.
I joined a few people to ride camels to the middle of the Ming Sha sand dunes so I could see the sunset. But unfortunately, a sandstorm swept through the desert and I didn’t end up seeing the sunset :( The locals told me that this type of stormy weather is actually rare in the desert there, but when it does occur, it's really bad for the crops in the fields. Just my luck to run into weather like this I guess! To me, the scariest thing about being in the desert is the sands blowing in my face and eyes. It was more painful than just traveling in the desert alone. I’ll get into more details later when I talk about my crossing the Gobi desert.
No one wanted to be the first one leading the camel team, so I did! It was my first time riding a camel but I handled it pretty well. They are such smart creatures! The locals told me that as long as you treat them well, they’ll do anything for you – pretty much like dogs. Each camel costs about 5000rmb and everyday they consume about 10-15rmb worth of food, which is a lot for maintenance.
Leaving everything behind and heading towards the famous Ming Sha sand dunes.
Yeah the sun didn't look too good...the storm was on its way!
My ride's got swag!
A camel trying to take a nap. Didn’t realize they nap like this…some woman was screaming: “omg, the camel’s dying. Help!” 汗 -_-
Are you kidding me? I need to climb up that thing to see the sunset?! Well, at least there were steps…
The storm's here!
You see those tires over there? I sat in one of those to slide down the sand dune. It rotated 360 degrees when I was half way down which was kind of wild…yeah, I thought I was going to end up with a mouthful of sand.
Riding a camel certainly wasn’t enough. I rented a “desert motorcycle” so I could see more of the sand dunes. The locals thought I was crazy (being a girl, tiny and everything) and one guy told me that even he has never ridden that thing before because it’s scary. Seriously though, it was similar to driving a car, except in the sands. I def. didn’t have any trouble maneuvering the motorcycle and I was racing across the dunes. Everything I did on this trip was super fun, but if I had to pick one thing to recommend to people, I’d say: ride the desert motorcycle! Race across the desert in the sand storms! Nothing beats that! Ahhh….so much fun!!!
My motorcycle buddy took these pix for me. I loved it there so much. If the weather was nice, the sands would look gold in the sun. Too bad the weather sucked…but I had plenty of fun already!
Check out the texture of the sands. The sands here are called: five-colored sands (五色沙). The colors are: red, yellow, green, black and white.
Finally made it to the Crescent Moon Lake. The annual precipitation rate is 50 mm, 48 times less than the annual evaporation rate which is 2400 mm. However, there is an under ground water source, thus why the lake has been around for (apparently) thousands of years.
A pagoda at the Crescent Moon Lake.
旱枣树. A special plant that’s only found in the deserts of west China. The tree produces dry dates. I had one at a local village house, it was pretty good. Imagine dates, but dry…lol
Made some new friends who offered to give me free tours of the city. I cannot stress enough how nice people of Gansu are. They are simple (in a good way) and extremely friendly. 纯朴，热情。So different from people from big cities! I was like, wow, Chinese people could be this nice?! (ok, is there a way to rotate images on blogger?! b/c its ridic that it doesnt have that function! i already spent so much time on this post and dont have time to reformat the images. photoshops on another computer...sorry for the trouble guys)
After getting back from the Ming Sha sand dunes, I visited the best restaurant locally for the famous “yellow noodles with donkey meat (驴肉黄面).” There’s a Chinese saying: 天上的鹅肉，地上的驴肉. Which means (ok my translation sucks so bear with me) when it comes to birds that fly in the sky, swan meat is the most delicious; when it comes to animals that run on the ground, donkey meat is the tastiest. And yes, donkey meat is the best meat I’ve ever had. Strongly recommended! I (P.S. my grandma made me eat deer meat today which she thinks beats donkey meat. But no, donkey meat is still the best!!!)
Local specialty drink: 杏皮水, “plum skin juice.” It was okay, just tasted like plum. Not a big fan.
I can’t believe I only finished the first day of my trip…I uploaded and went through thousands of pictures - took hours! I’ll post this one first and write up the other days later.
I’m so sleepy and tired, but HAPPY! Fei just arrived in Beijing (from RI) and I'm going to see her. YAY! I wish I could split myself into 10 people right now just to see how the people I need to see. So many people to see but there’s so little time. Maybe I should take a break after I get back from Henan then get on the road again? I really need some rest.
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