The heat sears my neck as I turn over my camera equipment at the heavily guarded checkpoint. No photos are allowed of what we’re about to see.  Between the heat and my nakedness I lack the proper anticipation for what lies in the beehive of caves ahead.

Sullen, I fall to the back of the small group as we enter the first cave. I’d blown off the guide’s introduction, deservedly missing important clues about what to expect (I did catch the part about he being the only one allowed to have a flashlight — seemed unfair).

The group brakes en mass at the mouth of what appears a cavernous tunnel. Ducking behind and squeezing to the side, I move around into an empty space and take several steps. I’m blessedly alone in the cool, refreshing darkness. My eyes adjust. I’m nose to nose with something the size of my house protruding towards me. Colors and scale come into focus and a smile breaks my stony face.

An UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Mogao Caves are part of a system of 492 Buddhist grottoes carved into cliffs along the Silk Road at the far western end of the Great Wall. Paintings and sculpture of a quantity and size I struggled to grasp, the caves contain one of the greatest repositories of Buddhist art in the world. Manuscripts alone approximate 50,000. It’s estimated the artwork could fill 15 miles of gallery space.

At its pinnacle the site had 18 monasteries, 1400 monks and nuns, and numerous artists, calligraphers, and translators. The construction of the caves spanned 10 dynasties. Generally agreed to have been founded in AD 366, the collapse of trade after the Yuan dynasty left the 1700 meters of grottoes and a millennium of art untouched for centuries as the Gobi desert took hold.

The hidden treasure went undiscovered until the early 1900’s when Wang Yuanlu, a Chinese Taoist appointed himself guardian of the temples.Yuanlu discovered a walled-up containment area holding hordes of manuscripts. He proceeded to sell these for a pittance to Aurel Stein a Hungarian archaeologist, who then discovered the Diamond Sutra, the world’s oldest dated printed text, along with 40,000 other scrolls (all removed by gradually winning the confidence of Yuanlu, the Taoist caretaker).

Word got out and the European archaeologists descended in 1910 laying claim. Greed ran amok. Bits and pieces of the discovery were sold and scattered all over the world while wall murals and other permanent works were destroyed in the removal process. Between the plundering of archaeologists, the Chinese themselves, a few Muslims, and Russian troops who intentionally destroyed and defaced some of the art, a fair amount remains to be enjoyed in its original and rightful environment.

While various art objects can be viewed today in the British Museum, the British Library, the Srinagar Museum, and the National Museum, New Delhi, there is but one way to see the Mogao Caves. Trek to the far Western end of the Great Wall, walk into the dark coolness and open your eyes to see their occupants staring back at you .

Photo by Tammie Dooley

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This isn’t Beijing. It’s on the opposite side of the country, as far away as you can get from the major Chinese travel destinations. And if you managed to get here (a feat my friend), without knowing where you were headed you wouldn’t recognize it, or anyone living here, as being associated with China.

We embarked from Kashgar (Kashi) airport into a land untouched by time. Kashgar is a time warp that could just as easily have been the set of a Star Trek or Twilight Zone. It was indeed just as exciting as stepping through that portal opening. The Han Chinese are minorities here. Uigher is the language. The people (Uighers, Tajiks, Krygyzs, and Uzbeks) seemed the happiest and were indisputably the kindest we encountered during 5 weeks backpacking China.

The West of China, specifically the provinces of XinJiang and Gansu, had beckoned me just as the Western United States has always enticed me. There are many similarities in their appeal. Still considered a no-man’s land (and marked so on a few maps), Kashgar in the Xinjiang Province is a fixture in time on the 6,000 year old Silk Road. Eight nations border to create a collision of people/culture/language, giving XinJiang’s capital, Urumqui, the title “most land-locked city in the world.”

Dunhuang is southeast from Urumqui in the province of Gansu, just south of Mongolia. Also on the world’s first information superhighway, the Silk Road, Gansu is a treasure trove of Buddhist paintings and sculptures, and the Buddhist grottoes of the Mogao Caves. The arid land and harsh climate has made the land barely inhabitable. As such, the Gansu Province is one of the 5 poorest provinces in China. Dunhuang may be poor, but when we pulled into downtown in a “taxi”, we were instantly transported from weary travelers to starry eyed tourists. The town is alight at night with magical colors that gratefully rejuvenated us. The light of day replaced the magic with a sobering reality. Yet even that meant 4 days of adventure we’ll never forget.

China is culturally and topographically vast. Unless you’re there on a prolonged stay, you’ll only see a fraction of it. If you want to take home memories and photographs that few China visitors see, Go West!

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We’re a nation teetering on social burn-out. The multitude of devices designed to bind us together like links in a chain has made it difficult to go to the bathroom and be alone. Articles on efficiency are prolific: how to cut a minute off some task, make your morning shower more efficient, and speed up this or that. And yet I know more discontented people than ever. When the pundits start messing with your morning shower, who wouldn’t be unhappy? It all begs the point, if being continually connected to a large group of people and having your life maximized for efficiency can’t deliver happiness, what’s missing? Some solo time, my friends.

Ester Schaler Buchholz, PhD, an outspoken advocate for solitude, in her 1997 book The Call of Solitude writes: “We live in a society that worships independence yet deeply fears alienation. The earth’s population has doubled since the 1950s and in cities across the world, urban crowding and the new global economy have revolutionized social relationships. Cellular phones now extend the domain of the workplace into every part of our lives; religion no longer provides a place for quiet retreat but instead offers “megachurches” of social and secular amusement; and climbers on top of Mt. McKinley whip out hand-held radios to call home. We are heading toward a time when, according to the New York Times,” portable phones, pagers, and data transmission devices of every sort will keep us terminally in touch.” Yet in another more profound way, we are terminally out of touch. The need for genuine and constructive aloneness has gotten utterly lost, and in the process, so have we.”

Solo road trips (SRT) strike fear in the heart of many. Either the brain conjures up “solitary confinement” and goes downhill from there or the thought of a road trip disgorges memories of the family sedan and their Dad’s mission to see America at 55 mph. But it’s not about getting away, it’s about going somewhere….with yourself. I read an article on solo travel that recommended spending some time on a psychological sofa before heading out on a solo road trip. I beg to differ. The trip IS the psychological sofa. And there’s no astronomical hourly billing attached. Few things in our lives are as liberating, empowering, and rejuvenating as a solo road trip. Yet as good as that sounds, most people have NEVER taken one. Friends can face down a room of professionals in a board room, or the crush of orders coming in for burgers and fries at high noon, but they can’t face the prospect of being alone.

Let’s debunk a myth right off the bat about solo travel. There are those who believe the only experiences that really matter are those you share with someone else. Pifel! That’s my mother’s favorite exclamatory word and provides a more politically correct substitute for my favorite words: bullshit, crap, crapola, and whatacrock. If you asked these people in a question format “do you believe the only experiences that really matter are….” they would likely say “no.” But my SRTs have become a curiosity, and with that I’ve become a curiosity. So I hear feedback about them and I can tell you a lot of it is negative and without any ability to relate. Why? Because deep down they believe the myth and they can’t relate to those of us who don’t. Various friends and family members are so unable to relate to my road trips, they can’t talk about them. Upon my return last fall from 9 days on the open road, a best friend called and said “Okay, it’s just not right you wanting to have all that fun to yourself, and I demand to go with you on the next one.” Judy. Then it wouldn’t be a SOLO road trip. The concept is beyond her; fun should be shared. End of discussion. But it’s not the end. If it were, I’d have nothing else to write. And I’ve plenty to say, so stay tuned!

Photo “road trip” from wili_hybrid on Flickr

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