A perfect blue sky – which should be like that until Kirgistan – at the Chinese National Day, the 01 October, when we left Lanzhou for the Hexi Corridor. First we passed awfully eroded Loess-mountains, then reached the wide valley of the corridor, allways along the glaciers and snowfields of the Qilian ranges. The fresh snow from yesterday gave the landscape special attraction. Nearly up to Jiayuguan we drove through farmland, though the Gobi desert was right of us: The Chinese have extremly extended the areas under cultivation.

Unexpected huge crowds of tourist, nearly all Chinese, wanted to see the curiosities of Jiayuguan: The famous fort had been swarmed with visitors, perhaps due to the one-week holidays, which are combined with the National Day. And everyone had to pay expensive entrance fees of 10 $, the old regulation of high rate for foreigners and low price for locals does not longer exists. Again it was hard to decide, which of the walls or buildings were old, restored or completely new creations. Extra money was made with archery on “invaders”-puppets from the battlements and with an electromobile, carrying visitors the 400 m from the ticket office to the fort’s gate…

Of course, we had to pay a visit to the „reconstructed“ part of the Great Wall near Jiayuguan: What we stepped on was obviously never before existant in this shape: an access up the hill to isolated watch towers in form of a miniature Great Wall!

A fast ride in the afternoon took us on good roads to Dunhuang. First the fastening of the roof rack at the rear of the Toyota had to be welded: There was no load on this part, it’s just old and poor material!

We checked in a good new hotel and had a voluptuous dinner in a Uigur restaurant: Roasted meat, meat, meat & some beer

For those who has seen Dunhuang only 5 years ago, as we did, will be schocked nowadays: Yesterday 3.500 visitors stuffed the grottos – 600 are the fixed limit of daily allowance. The officials do not take care, they are only interested in money, 100 yüan per person (13 $) for Chinese and 120 yüan with an English speaking guide. Under these conditions, sightseeing makes no fun! The other Dunhuang attraction, the dune-surrounded crescent lake, loos like the sandhill in Disneyland, Paris (if they have one): Everywhere tourists by foot, on camels, in sand buggies or squads or down the sandy slopes with sledges or on the butt. Here the foreign silk-road tourism is at it’s end! Nevertheless Moritz and Ueli enjoyed their camelride through the dunes today… But to shot a deserted photo like that one on our website entry, china must deal with a new SARS epidemy or a failed atomic test in the Gobi.

(GA)