Lots more driving to be covered to get to Dunhuang but the road is so unpredictable that at one point we covered 7km in and hour! We finally made it to Dunhuang an 'oasis in a desert' after another bushcamp and day of driving and we were celebrating Ben's 19th birthday. Unfortunately we couldn't have the planned McDonalds party due to a lack of McDonalds but we did all enjoy mingling with the locals and Chinese tourists in the night market.
This morning we visited the Magao (thousand budda) caves which were spectacular. There were 735 caves cut into the sand dunes dating from 366 AD and varying in size. We has a tour around some of the biggest which contain statues of Budda including the 5th largest in the world and one of the 'sleeping' budda in which the cave is coffin shaped and the murals feature mourners. The tour was really interesting and a great insight to Buddist art.
Next stop is the Tibeten city of Lhasa and it's going to be a mission to get to after a section of road is closed to foreigners, so we have a 1000km plus diversion to get there. It's going to be interesting!
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