The three Buddha grotto day

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.

Turpan - two more ancient cities and a karez irrigation system

Tuesday 21 October 2025

Our driver, Tahir, met us first thing and we went to Gaochang Ancient City.  He spoke English which was a bonus so he enlightened us about the grape growing region, the karaz system of irrigation and how little rain they get (~16 mm a year) - to which he added “that’s why we still have two ancient cities”.  I got very excited as we dipped below 0 m mean sea level (MSL).  In fact we’re spending more time under rather than above MSL here and reached 90 m below today.  Quite a contrast from 4700 m above MSL last week, nearly 5 km height difference!

Gaochang city is on the northern rim of the Taklamakan Desert.  It was a trading post on the Silk Road built in the 1st Century BCE and was the ancient capital.  Its prominence declined over the centuries until it was totally overcome in the 14th Century CE and left to ruin. Since then, the wind and sun have reduced its stature, aided and abetted by local farmers who believed the adobe (mud walls) made excellent fertiliser.  Apparently they would simply tear parts down using pick axes.  They didn't totally decimate it, and today you can see ruins of old palaces and inner/outer city walls still exist - the outer walls spanned over 5 km.

As is often the case in these sites, we were shuttle bused (buggy really) around.  And there were only three stops.  As we weren’t attached to a tour group we were given our own buggy and driver.  At the first stop we wandered along the board walks taking photos.  This is the a small Buddhist temple, built 13-14 CE. 

We then were driven to the next stop, but I think the driver was either bored of our slow speed or trusted us and asked if he could drive on.  We waved him off and a nearby guard gave us permission to walk back to a site we’d just driven past (not one of the regular stops).  So, basically, we had the site to ourselves, or so it seemed.  As long as we stuck to the boardwalks and roadways we could go anywhere. 

This was far more than we’d hoped for and we had a lovely couple of hours exploring the site.

Each temple complex/significant artefact had a notice board and an officer standing there to check compliance with the no-stray rule.  Khan Palace was the largest set of ruins and you could see all the niches where the Buddhas once would have been.

On emerging, our driver took us to a Karez exhibition area.  The karez system of irrigation is the life blood of the region and seen as one of the great engineering feats of Chinese history.  It was only really practised around the Turpan area and involved digging a deep (up to 100 m) well at the foot of the Tian Shan mountains and boring an underground trench at the correct slope to bring the water to the ground surface.  The trick is to have a downward gradient for this subterranean channel that is less steep than the descent of the land above it, so eventually the water is only a few metres below the surface.  Clever stuff, but incredible when you realise they only had basic tools, rope pulleys, buckets and spades to create and maintain this.  To lower a karez craftsman into a shaft a hefty person sat on the capstan frame, controlling the descent speed via foot pedals.  Being a karez builder/maintainer was not for the faint hearted.

Across the region, Xinjiang, there is 5,272 km of karez, supported by 172,367 vertical shafts.  Due to climate change, on average 23 karez dried up each year between the 1950s-2003 and 32 each year from 2003-2009.  More on the Turpan karez system here.

I was very tickled by the karaz outfall experience area which came complete with a bronze sheep.

And we were less enthused by the over-developed underground karaz experience which was very blue (it's the lighting that's so blue - the water is actually clear believe it or not) and there were subterranean tourist shops plying their wares.  This is, though, a real Karez - the 3000 m long Yengi Karez, maintained by 110 shafts, with the depth of the first shaft being 63 metres.

It was in the discovery centre that we realised how the grape drying system here works.  We’d seen the drying buildings around (picture later) and presumed they spread the grapes on the floor to dry.  But, no, they hang them on wooden poles and, as the grapes dry, they drop off.

Lastly, today, we went to the ancient city of Jiaohe.  This was on JC’s bucket list so we made sure to leave 3+ hours for it.  Jiaohe (known as Yarghul in Uyghur) was built around the 4th Century BCE, and was the capital/main city of the region from ~108 BCE to 840 CE.  It sits on a large islet 1650 m long, 300 m wide in the middle of a river which explains why there are no city walls as the 30 m steep cliffs kept intruders out.  It had a population of 7,000 according to Tang dynasty records and was finally abandoned after an invasion by the Mongols in the 13th Century.

The temple district occupied 2/3 of the total city area!  The largest temple was decked out with chairs ready for the evening's light show.  

There were plenty of Buddha temple/hall remains plus a forest of stupas.  Stupas are objects around which Buddhists walk to pray.  In the Buddhist caves we visited yesterday, some of the caves had a central pillar which the worshipers walked around.  This was the earliest stupa presumably, which then turned into independently standing objects, such as the stupa below.  Stupa tend to solid mounds whereas pagodas can be entered (and may contain stupa inside).  More here in case you're interested.  

The buildings were made by cutting into the ground and piling up the sand/mud to create walls.  It made for very cool houses in the scorching summers, and provided a degree of warmth in the winter.  With minimal rainfall this was an ideal design.

We bumped into some cyclists from the UK who were cycling from UK to New Zealand and it was interesting to hear their travel stories.  And across the valley I could see numerous grape drying buildings.  

We stayed as long as we could leaving at 18:45.  

That evening we ate at Tahir’s house. His wife and he run an enterprise whereby they welcome tourists into their home (well, outside seating area) for snacks and tea.  His wife’s thing is to demonstrate how pasta is created from scratch. She had already made the dough, hand rolling it into tubes about 1 cm in diameter then let it rest for a few hours. 

She demonstrated how she hand stretched the dough through her fingers which happens twice before she wound it around her hands for the final stretch. All most impressive.  And, no, I am not at all tempted to try this at home although, if you listen carefully on the first video, JC seems up for it.