Day 8: Journey to the East and South

September 24

Alliance bought us a wonderful breakfast this morning-a bit of jam, an egg, and two pieces of toast-so filling I couldn't believe it.  Sarcasm for those who can't tell.  I feel like the budget is getting tight.

We rented bikes and rode(in my notebook I wrote road, My English...) on not bike friendly roads through the Dunhuang City center, making one horrifying left turn across a major road with a taxi speeding to kill me.  The ride was pleasant though, Patricia smoked a cig as we rode, we stopped by the river or pond or something for a bit, it was sunny and beautiful.

We made it to the White Horse Pagoda (in the itinerary it says Baima Pagoda or whatever: Bai means white, Ma means horse).
There really was not much of anything there, just a painting of the story and the pagoda and some farmers selling knick-knacks.  The story as I understood it from Lily was that a man who was possibly from Journey to the West, had a white horse.  In his sleep he had a dream where the horse spoke and told him that the horse was sent by the heavens and now had to return.  the next morning the man got up to find that the horse was dead...or that it had flown away, that was unclear, either method works I guess, basically it got back to the heavens and the man was sad....that's the story.

These kids were so cute but they kept moving so they were hard to get a picture of :(

 This is the way the panels were oriented

 These kids were playing with the Chinese kind of Magic Cards like things outside the bank.

The Dunhuang train station was far more quiet and relaxed than the Beijing, Xi'an, or Urumqi stations-explained by having a population of nothing.  Fourteen hours in the train to Lanzhou filled with a hair party and some noodles and some pumpkin flavored biscuits, some tension and some sleep, and the threat of Jeff getting yet another bloody nose.

 

the formatting on this one keeps getting messed up so sorry about pictures all over the place in no order and a mess