Times fun when you are having flies!

The stopover in Tokyo 7 days ago seemed like a blur now. Suddenly we are into our 8 day of your trek through the ancient silk road. The places we have been to are truly breathtaking. The moment we touched down at Xian, the journey started with a visit to the Terracotta Warriors. I have seen the TWs on posters and post cards, but when we stood in the tomb with the warriors, we were in awe of the painstaking effort taken to create thousands of warriors, each different to the other. The food was magnificent. At Xian, there were many groups going along the Ancient Silk Road but as we ventured off the beaten track to places like Xiahe (pronounced "Jia her"), a Tiabetan Buddhist community, there were less travellers. At Xiahe, we spent some time at the Labuleng Lamasery - one the six greatest monasteries of the Gelupa Sect (Yellow Cap Sect). The Yak butter lamps had an aroma that took some getting used to. We ended the day with dinner at the Sangke Praire Camp.

The next leg of our sojourn was from Xian to Lanzhou, a city renowned for its hand pulled noodles. Naturally, I had my fair share of it. Lanzhou is situated along the valley. The mountains are incredible. We took a 60min speed boat ride to Bilingsi Grotto where a giant buddha is carved out of the mountain side. Today this is the largest Buddha after the one in Afganistan was destroyed by the Talibans. Dotted along the valley were thousands of little buddhas and wall inscriptions. The day ended with a trip to the White Pagoda Hill, however, the pagoda was far from being a white pagoda.

After dinner, we took a soft sleeper to Jiayuguan (pronounced Jia U guan). This is the actual place where emperor Nasi Goreng built the Great Wall (Jia Yu Pass) to keep the rabbits out.
Jiayuguan is flanked by the Gobi desert. (day temperatures get up to 30 degrees centigrade and night temperatures fall to single digits. We just returned from visiting the tombs of the Wei and Jin periods. The artifacts are incredible. Painting on the brich work dates back 1700 years. The group of people we are travelling with is great. They love to try every thing.

I took about 300 shots of the wall. God was shining his light on me as the evening light painted an awesome picture of the the wall. I would like to upload some images but the connections here are quite slow. The schedule is quite hectic.

Tomorrow we head off to Dunhuang (pronounced Doong Wáng). More of the picturesque Gobi dessert and Taklimakan desert. I shall see if they have a faster connection and I shall upload some images.

Blog soon.