Wednesday 22 October 2025
We had a Buddha grotto or two planned today, but little did we know at the start that we’d end up visiting three cave (grotto) complexes before the day was out.
First up was Bezeklik Thousand Buddha caves, nestled in the Flaming Mountains. These are not marked on the map below and were more like hills compared to the northerly range of Bogda (which are in the north of the blue circle below). You can see the green of the Turpan depression which dips to 154 m below mean sea level. I told you we were low!
It was a cold but sunny day to visit these caves, carved in ~11th Century. Once again, only a few were open to tourists.
Also, like other cave complexes we'd visited, they had been pillaged by explorers who left little but just a few paintings. On a more positive note, despite the 'no photo' signs, we were allowed to take photos using a phone as long as we didn't take a video and JC's “proper” camera wasn't allowed.
Any Buddha painting which had survived the explorers ransacking, had subsequently been vandalised by anti-Buddhists who defaced the eyes/head of each and every Buddha they could reach.
The elderly chap was strumming his long necked lute for the tourists. It was a beautiful instrument inlaid with ivory (maybe?) and an unusual ‘folded’ end where the strings are tightened. (There is properly an official term for the end of a guitar).
As we left, we could see camels kicking up dust as they trotted down a hill. I think this was a camel/mountain view experience thing which we didn't explore further.
We had a decent leg stretch today. We’d planned a walk down a valley thinking it was a path but, as it turned out, it was actually along the road; it had been really hard to find out any detail about it. Tahir followed us down the road in the car, stopping occasionally to show us where we could climb down. The stream was a beautiful oasis of colour against the barren mountains.
Despite walking down a road, it wasn’t too busy and there were lots of beautiful vistas to see. There was also, a bit randomly, a roadside truck selling decent coffee. Don't mind if we do.
A police car passed us at one point, followed soon by Tahir who had seen it and turned back to check we didn’t need any help. It hadn’t stopped so we were fine. We are used to showing our passports, having them photographed and being asked our travel route/hotel bookings, but it was kind of him to check we weren’t stuck.
We enjoyed the 6 km stroll to ourselves. The river ran down the gorge like a slither of life - everywhere else was a dry, dusty landscape (that's deserts for you I suppose).
I found a survey marker and a very dried up culvert.
At the base of the pass sits the old village of Tuyuq.
It has been touristified to the extent there were no local residents from what we could see, either that or they were hiding. There were just souvenir shops galore and I only took a picture of the mosque. We stuck our head in and found a restaurant inside, it wasn't clear if it also still functioned as a place of worship.
We walked 1 km beyond up the valley towards the Toyok Grottos, spotting the Toyogou Hojamu Tomb as we went. Legend has that he was one of the first Uyghurs to convert to Islam and it is such a holy site that a pilgrimage here counts as half a hadji.
These grottos are the oldest in Turpan and contemporaneous with the development of the ancient city of Gaochang. They were built over a 500 m stretch either side of the valley until the site was abandoned in the 15th Century. There are over 160 caves left. Sadly, unsurprisingly, explorers looted the grottos leaving little left to see. Sorry, I do sound like a broken record here. There was one cave with many Buddha paintings, most of which survived as the explorers took the statues and large murals, leaving 999 little Buddhas behind.
Toyok Grottos was a relatively newly opened cave complex and still being redeveloped for tourists. We crossed the access road they were building ready for the shuttle bus to save Chinese legs the 1 km walk from the village - they do love shuttle buses! Their H&S made me cringe - no gloves, ear defenders etc. I found the old bridge which I’m sure will be replaced/refurbished with a shuttle bus sturdy version soon.
On our way back to Turpan we stopped at an even newer opened cave complex, the Singim Grottos. To my delight these were free, but it was probably because there wasn't much to see (so far). They were constructed in the 1st Century CE (Tang Dynasty) and, like the Tuyok caves, used until the late 14th Century.
I felt sorry for the cave attendants who had to monitor the dribble of tourists coming through. It did, however, mean that we didn’t have to elbow our way through a pack or tourists. I think old caves are too dull for many.
We enjoyed the sun setting against the flaming mountains. Although once everything turned orange it was hard to spot the ruins of the Buddhist temples against them.
We walked over 27,000 steps today. I'll be needing a decent rest when I get back from this holiday.
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