5Eating
Dūnhuáng's local speciality is donkey-meat noodles (驴肉黄面; lǘròu huángmiàn), though these days this is more of a novelty dish than everyday food. You'll still find restaurants all over town offering the dish, which consists of roasted, sliced donkey meat served cold over warm egg noodles.
There are restaurants large and small all over Dūnhuáng, many with English or picture menus. For niúròu miàn (牛肉面; beef noodles) head to any of a number of restaurants along Xiyu Lu. The night market is the most popular spot for eats in the city.
Charley Johng’s CafeBREAKFAST, CHINESE$
(风味餐馆; Fēngwèi Cānguǎn MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %0937 388 2411; Mingshan Lu; 名山路 dishes ¥6-36; h8am-10pm; W)
Tasty Western-style breakfasts, including scrambled eggs, muesli with yoghurt, and pancakes, are available all day either à la carte or as a set. There are also sandwiches, and a host of Chinese dishes such as stir-fries and dumplings. It also arranges daily tours to surrounding sights, including Yǎdān National Park, and is a good source of traveller information. English spoken.
oZhāixīng GéCHINESE, INTERNATIONAL$$
(摘星阁; Silk Road Dūnhuáng Hotel Dunyue Lu, 敦月路 dishes ¥18-38; h7am-1pm & 4.30pm-midnight)
Part of the Silk Road Dūnhuáng Hotel, this rooftop restaurant is ideal for a meal (the Western buffet breakfast is excellent) or a sundowner gazing out over the golden sand dunes. Dishes do not cost much more than places in town. Try the Uighur bread or the surprisingly good thick-crust pizza.
Shāzhōu Night MarketMARKET$$
(沙洲夜市; Shāzhōu Yèshì MAP GOOGLE MAP ; btwn Yangguan Donglu & Xiyu Lu; hmorning-late)
Extending from Yangguan Lu south to Xiyu, this market is both a place to eat and to socialise, night and day. Off Yanguang Donglu are dozens of well organised stalls with English signs: expect Sìchuān, Korean noodles, dumplings, claypot, barbecue including ròujiāmó and Lánzhōu noodles. Also look out for cooling cups of xìngpíshuǐ (杏皮水; apricot juice; ¥5).
There is also an open-air seating area nearby with singing, music bands and roast lamb by the platter or skewer. Along with the seated areas along Fanggu Shangye Yitao Jie, this is the most expensive place to eat barbecued meat. For a better deal try the alleys radiating east.
6Drinking & Nightlife
The streets around Shāzhōu Night Market, particularly the ones near Dūnhuáng Mosque, have cafes that also serve as bars in the evening. In summer the Silk Road Dūnhuáng Hotel hosts a beer garden at the entrance to the grounds, while its stylish rooftop Zhāixīng Gé offers peerless views over the desert to go with a beer or a glass of local ice wine.
Memory Box CafeCAFE, BAR
(时光盒子咖啡馆; Shíguāng Hézi Kāfēi Guǎn MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %0937 881 9911; room 106a, 7th Bldg, Fengqing City; juice ¥25, beer ¥15)
This comfy cafe serves a range of drinks and Chinese and Western snacks, including Illy coffee and some imported beers. It also has a few nice seats out front in warmer weather.
Silk Road Beer TownBEER GARDEN
(丝路酒坊; Sīlù Jiǔfāng Silk Road Dūnhuáng Hotel, Dunyue Lu; 敦煌山庄敦月路 h12.30-4pm & 6pm-1am)
An airy covered beer garden in front of the Silk Road Dūnhuáng Hotel serving up cheap, cold bottles of Tsingtao (¥15) and heaping portions of fried noodles and other Chinese dishes.
Brown Sugar CafeCAFE
(黑糖咖啡; Hēitáng Kāfēi MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %0937 881 7111; 28 Tianma Jie; 天马街28号 tea ¥25-38, bottle of wine ¥78-198; h1pm-midnight; W)
This friendly cafe mixes modern with crafty decor and cafe classics with a Dūnhuáng twist. Try a cup of fresh-leaf Chinese tea to balance out a sweet black-rice muffin. Things turn smoky at night when fashionable locals come to sip beer and Mògāo wine.
3Entertainment
There are often night-time opera and other music performances in the square near the mosque.
Dūnhuáng Theatre (敦煌大剧院; Dūnhuáng Dàjùyuàn MAP GOOGLE MAP ; Yangguan Zhonglu; 阳关中路 ) hosts Dūnhuáng Goddess (敦煌神女, Dūnhuáng Shénnǚ MAP GOOGLE MAP ; Dūnhuáng Theater, Yangguan Zhonglu, 敦煌大剧院阳关中路 ¥220; h8.30pm), an 80-minute acrobatic dramatisation of stories on the walls of the Mògāo Grottoes. English subtitles are provided.
8Information
Wi-fi is widely available in cafes and hotel rooms, and there are internet cafes on the main streets if you get stuck.
Bank of ChinaBANK
(中国银行; Zhōngguó Yínháng GOOGLE MAP ; Yangguan Zhonglu; 阳关中路 h8am-noon & 2-6pm Mon-Fri)
Has a 24-hour ATM.
China PostPOST
(中国邮政; Zhōngguó Yóuzhèng GOOGLE MAP ; Yangguan Donglu; 阳关中路 h8.30am-6pm daily)
Sells stamps and delivers packages internationally.
Fēitiān Travel ServiceTRAVEL AGENCY
(飞天旅行社; Fēitiān Lǚxíngshè, Fēitiān Bīnguǎn GOOGLE MAP ; %0937 885 2318, 138 3070 6288; 551 Mingshan Lu; 鸣山路551号 )
Can arrange tours to Mògāo Grottoes, local day trips and car rental.
Mògāo Grottoes Reservation and Ticket CenterBOOKING SERVICE
(莫高窟参观预约售票中心; Mògāo Kū Cānguān Yùyuē Shòupiào Zhōngxīn GOOGLE MAP ; Yangguan Dadao; 阳关大道迎宾花园北区15号楼102号 )
Public Security BureauPOLICE
(PSB; 公安局; Gōng’ānjú GOOGLE MAP ; %0937 886 2071; Yangguan Zhonglu; 阳关中路 h8am-noon & 3-6.30pm Mon-Fri)
Two days needed for visa extension.
8Getting There & Away
Air
Apart from November to March, when there are only flights to/from Lánzhōu and Xī’ān, there are regular flights to/from Běijīng, Lánzhōu, Shànghǎi, Ürümqi and Xī’ān.
Seats can be booked at the air ticket office in the lobby of the Yóuzhèng Bīnguǎn hotel (邮政宾馆), on Yangguan Donglu west of China Post.
Bus
From Dūnhuáng’s bus station (长途汽车站; Zhángtú Qìchēzhàn GOOGLE MAP ; %0937 885 3746; Xiyu Lu; h7am-8pm daily), you can catch buses to Jiāyùguān and Lánzhōu (though trains are cheaper and faster), as well as the following:
AGolmud ¥99, nine hours, two daily (9am and 7.30pm)
ALiǔyuán (柳园) ¥20, three hours, eight per day (7.30am to 6.30pm)
AÜrümqi ¥198, 14 hours, one daily (7pm), sleeper. May stop in Turpan.
Train
Dūnhuáng’s station is 10km east of town, but for some destinations, such as Běijīng West and Ürümqi, you’ll have to leave from Liǔyuán Station, a crazy 180km away.
AJiāyùguān Seat/hard sleeper ¥53/112, 4½ hours, seven daily
ALánzhōu Hard/soft sleeper ¥141/276, 14 hours, three daily (9.12am, 6.55pm and 8.07pm); more trains leave from Liǔyuán Station
ATurpan (from Liǔyuán Station) Hard/soft sleeper ¥93/184, six to eight hours; high-speed trains go to Turpan North
AÜrümqi (from Liǔyuán Station) Hard/soft sleeper/high-speed 2nd-class seat ¥112/219/247, five to nine hours; high-speed trains leave from Liǔyuán South
Tickets can be booked at the train booking office (火车票发售点; Huǒchē Piào Fāshòu Diǎn GOOGLE MAP ; Tianma Jie; 天马街 h8am-noon & 1-4pm, to 8pm summer) south of the mosque.
If you are heading to Liǔyuán Station (for trains to Ürümqi and high-speed rail), catch a bus or shared taxi (per person ¥45) from the front of the bus station. Give yourself at least three hours to get to Liǔyuán Station (including waiting for the taxi to fill up with other passengers).
8Getting Around
The airport is 13km east of town; a taxi to/from the airport costs ¥40 and takes 20 minutes.
The train station is 14km from the centre of town, on the same road as the airport. Bus 1 runs to the train station from the bus stop ( GOOGLE MAP ; Mingshan Lu) from 7.30am to 9pm.
You can rent bikes from travellers’ cafes for ¥5 per hour.
Taxis around town start at ¥5.
SILK ROAD RAIDERS
In 1900, the self-appointed guardian of the Mògāo Grottoes, Wang Yuanlu, discovered a hidden library filled with tens of thousands of immaculately preserved manuscripts and paintings, dating as far back as AD 406.
It’s hard to describe the exact magnitude of the discovery, but stuffed into the tiny cave were texts in rare Central Asian languages, military reports, music scores, medical prescriptions, Confucian and Taoist classics, and Buddhist sutras copied by some of the greatest names in Chinese calligraphy – not to mention the oldest printed book in existence, the Diamond Sutra (AD 868). In short, it was an incalculable amount of original source material regarding Chinese, Central Asian and Buddhist history.
Word of the discovery quickly spread and Wang Yuanlu, suddenly the most popular bloke in town, was courted by rival archaeologists Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot, among others. Following much pressure to sell the cache, Wang Yuanlu finally relented and parted with an enormous hoard of treasure. On his watch close to 20,000 of the cave’s priceless manuscripts were whisked off to Europe for the paltry sum of £220.
Today, Chinese intellectuals bitter at the sacking of the caves deride Stein, Pelliot and others for making off with what they consider to be national treasures. Defenders of the explorers point out that had the items been left alone, there is a chance they could have been lost during the ensuing civil war or the Cultural Revolution.
Around Dūnhuáng
Most people visit the Mògāo Grottoes in the morning, followed by the Singing Sands Dune in the late afternoon to catch the sunset. Note that it can be 40°C in the desert during the summer so go prepared with water, a sunhat and snacks.
oMògāo GrottoesCAVE, BUDDHIST
(莫高窟; Mògāo Kū www.mgk.org.cn/index.htm; low/high season ¥120/220; h8am-6pm May-Oct, 9am-5.30pm Nov-Apr)
The Mògāo Grottoes are considered one of the most important collections of Buddhist art in the world. At its peak during the Tang dynasty (618–907), the site housed 18 monasteries, more than 1400 monks and nuns, and countless artists, translators and calligraphers.
Tours by excellent English-speaking guides at 9am, noon and 2.30pm are included in the admission price, and you should be able to arrange tours in other languages as well. Many of the guides are students or researchers at the Dūnhuáng Academy, which administers the caves.
In 2015 the Mògāo Grottoes site saw a huge upgrade, with a state-of-the-art visitor centre built just a few kilometres outside of central Dūnhuáng. Admission includes two 30-minute films, one on the history of the area and the Silk Road, and one that allows close-up computer-generated views of cave interiors not normally open to visitors in an IMAX-style theatre. From here, visitors are shuttled to the caves 15km down the road in dedicated coaches.
Of the 492 caves, 20 ‘open’ caves are rotated fairly regularly. Entrance is strictly controlled – it’s impossible to visit them independently. In addition to the two films, the general admission ticket includes a roughly two-hour tour of 10 caves, including the famous Hidden Library Cave (cave 17), the two big Buddhas, 34.5m and 26m tall, and a related exhibit containing rare fragments of manuscripts in classical Uighur and Manichean.
Photography is prohibited inside the caves. If it’s raining or snowing or there's a sand storm, the site will be closed.
Tickets must be purchased in advance either online at the caves' official website (Chinese ID card needed at the time of writing) or from the Mògāo Grottoes Reservation and Ticket Center, a separate booking office where staff speak English. Note that tickets are not sold at the main visitor centre.
History
Wealthy traders and important officials were the primary donors responsible for creating new caves, as caravans made the long detour past Mògāo to pray or give thanks for a safe journey through the treacherous wastelands to the west. The traditional date ascribed to the founding of the first cave is AD 366.
The caves fell into disuse for about 500 years after the collapse of the Yuan dynasty and were largely forgotten until the early 20th century, when they were ‘rediscovered’ by a string of foreign explorers.
Northern Wei, Western Wei & Northern Zhou Caves
These, the earliest of the Mògāo Caves, are distinctly Indian in style and iconography. All contain a central pillar, representing a stupa (symbolically containing the ashes of the Buddha), which the devout would circle in prayer. Paint was derived from malachite (green), cinnabar (red) and lapis lazuli (blue), expensive minerals imported from Central Asia.
The art of this period is characterised by its attempt to depict the spirituality of those who had transcended the material world through their asceticism. The Wei statues are slim, ethereal figures with finely chiselled features and comparatively large heads. The northern Zhou figures have ghostly white eyes.
Sui Caves
The Sui dynasty (AD 581–618) was short-lived and very much a transition between the Wei and Tang periods. This can be seen in the Sui caves at Mògāo: the graceful Indian curves in the Buddha and Bodhisattva figures start to give way to the more rigid style of Chinese sculpture.
The Sui dynasty began when a general of Chinese or mixed Chinese–Tuoba origin usurped the throne of the northern Zhou dynasty and reunited northern and southern China for the first time in 360 years.
Tang Caves
The Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) was Mògāo’s high point. Painting and sculpture techniques became much more refined, and some important aesthetic developments, notably the sex change (from male to female) of Guanyin and the flying apsaras (Buddhist celestial beings), took place. The beautiful murals depicting the Buddhist Western Paradise offer rare insights into the court life, music, dress and architecture of Tang China.
Some 230 caves were carved during the religiously diverse Tang dynasty, including two impressive grottoes containing enormous, seated Buddha figures. Originally open to the elements, the statue of Maitreya in cave 96 (believed to represent Empress Wu Zetian, who used Buddhism to consolidate her power) is a towering 34.5m tall, making it the world’s third-largest Buddha. The Buddhas were carved from the top down using scaffolding, the anchor holes of which are still visible.
Post-Tang Caves
Following the Tang dynasty, the economy around Dūnhuáng went into decline, and the luxury and vigour typical of Tang painting began to be replaced by simpler drawing techniques and flatter figures. The mysterious Western Xia kingdom, which controlled most of Gānsù from 983 to 1227, made a number of additions to the caves at Mògāo and began to introduce Tibetan influences.
Getting There & Away
The Mògāo Grottoes are 25km (30 minutes) southeast of Dūnhuáng, but tours start and end at the visitor centre, about 5km from Mingshan Lu near the train station. A green minibus (one way ¥3) leaves for the visitor centre every 30 minutes from 8am to 5pm from outside the Silk Road Hotel (丝路宾馆; Sīlù Bīnguǎn). A taxi costs ¥15 one-way, and taxis generally wait outside the visitor centre, so it's easy to find one on the way back.
Singing Sands DuneOASIS
(鸣沙山; Míngshā Shān ¥120; h6am-7.30pm)
Six kilometres south of Dūnhuáng at Singing Sands Dune, the desert meets the oasis in most spectacular fashion. From the sheer scale of the dunes, it’s easy to see how Dūnhuáng gained its moniker ‘Shāzhōu’ (Town of Sand). The view across the undulating desert and green poplar trees below is awesome.
You can bike to the dunes in 20 minutes from the centre of Dūnhuáng. Bus 3 (¥2) shuttles between Shazhou Lu and Mingshan Lu and the dunes from 7.30am to 9pm. A taxi costs ¥20 one way.
The climb to the top of the dunes – the highest peak swells to 1715m – is sweaty work, but worth it. Rent a pair of bright-orange shoe protectors (防沙靴; fángshāxuē; ¥15) or just shake your shoes out later.
At the base of the colossal dunes is a famous pond, Crescent Moon Lake (月牙泉; Yuèyáquán). The dunes are a no-holds-barred tourist playpen, with dune buggies, ‘dune surfing’ (sand sled
ding), paragliding and even microlighting. But it’s not hard to hike away to enjoy the sandy spectacle in peace.
Tickets are good for three days' entry. To avail of this, you must ask the security staff at the gate as you exit – they will take your fingerprint so only you can use the ticket again.
Hostels in Dūnhuáng offer overnight camel treks to the dunes from ¥400 per person. There are also five- to eight-day expeditions out to the Jade Gate Pass, Liǔyuán and even as far as Lop Nor in the deserts of Xīnjiāng.
Sun PassHISTORIC SITE
(阳关; Yángguān ¥50; h8am-8pm)
This Han dynasty military post was one of the two most important gates marking the end of the Chinese empire along the ancient Silk Road. Today, a dusty museum chronicles some of the site's artefacts, but the real draw is the crumbling beacon tower atop Dundun Hill, where a modern viewing platform offers generous vistas of the surrounding Taklamakan Desert.
Yúlín GrottoesBUDDHIST SITE
(榆林窟; Yúlín Kū ¥40; h8.30am-6pm)
About 180km south of Dūnhuáng, the 40-plus caves of the Yúlín Grottoes face each other across a narrow canyon. It’s intriguing to observe the original carved interior tunnels that formerly connected the caves. The interior art spans a 1500-year period, from the Northern Wei to the Qing dynasty. Many show a distinctive Tibetan influence.
Lonely Planet China Page 178
