2021 Hexi Corridor Travel Notes---Guazhou Yulin Grottoes
Day 11 July 7 Wednesday Chartered car to Yulin Grottoes Bullet train to Dunhuang Stay in Dunhuang
Guzhou Railway Station is about 80 kilometers from Yulin Grottoes scenic area, 160 kilometers round trip. One way takes about an hour by car, so two hours on the road, not counting stops for photos at free attractions along the way. After purchasing tickets at Yulin Grottoes, arranging the visit and taking photos at the scenic area takes about one and a half hours; if you also want to see the special caves, it adds another hour. On the way back, you can see free attractions like Pochengzi ruins, Red Willow Wetland, Son of the Earth, and Mirage. Including travel time, the whole trip takes about 6-7 hours. Only 4 special caves are open for visiting at Yulin Grottoes: Cave 2 - 100 yuan, Cave 3 - 150 yuan, Cave 4 - 100 yuan, Cave 25 - 200 yuan. Whether it's the Eighteen Arhats in the regular caves or the Western Xia and Ming Dynasty murals (including Journey to the West murals) in the special caves, they are all masterpieces. Yulin Grottoes are also under the jurisdiction of the Dunhuang Academy. Photography is not allowed inside the caves. General tickets only allow visiting regular caves; special caves require separate tickets with dedicated guides. Yulin Grottoes specialize in murals, with a limited number of caves, but their Western Xia murals have higher artistic value than Mogao Caves and also fill gaps not covered by Mogao.
Representative 4 caves: Visiting the 4 special caves takes at least 2 hours.
Cave 2 (100 yuan) "Water Moon Guanyin" is an original Western Xia work and one of the finest among Western Xia murals.
Cave 3 (150 yuan) "Line Drawing of Manjushri and Samantabhadra Procession" contains both exoteric and esoteric Buddhist content from Western Xia, the most mature and typical cave, with extremely delicate and vivid painting.
Cave 4 (100 yuan) "Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism" was built in the Yuan Dynasty, with strong and contrasting colors, spreading a mysterious religious scroll.
Cave 25 (200 yuan) "Visualization Sutra Transformation" was the cave most admired by Zhang Daqian, and is the most prominent cave from the mid-Tang Tibetan period, well-preserved with rich and vivid content.
The preservation, exquisite style, rich content, and artistic research value of the special cave murals are unmatched; the murals of Yulin Grottoes represent the highest achievement of Dunhuang murals. Although tickets for special caves are a bit expensive, they are worth it. In the special caves, we saw scenes of Xuanzang returning from his pilgrimage to obtain scriptures and setting out. Behind Xuanzang stood a foreigner with the appearance of a macaque. Obviously, in the Western Xia period, there was no story of Xuanzang and his four disciples obtaining scriptures. Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West clearly combined legends of the time with his own imagination.
General tickets allow visiting 5 caves with a guide, after which you can stay to see special caves.
Because we were near Yulin Grottoes, this was the only day in the entire trip when we set out the latest. We slept in comfortably, had breakfast, and departed from the hotel at 9 am, arriving at Suoyang Town at 10 am. There is a fork in the road: one leads to Suoyang City, the other to Yulin Grottoes. Since there are no restaurants at Suoyang City or Yulin Grottoes, whether with a tour group or a chartered car, the typical plan is to go to Suoyang City in the morning, have lunch at Suoyang Town, and then head to Yulin Grottoes in the afternoon. If departing from Dunhuang, you would need to set out at 7 am at the earliest, driving for 2 hours—exhausting just to think about. Therefore, staying overnight in Guazhou is the best choice for visiting Yulin Grottoes.
At 10:30 we arrived at Yulin Grottoes and began our visit. The regular ticket gave access to 5 caves for 3 people, 100 yuan, about 50 minutes. The 4 special caves: 2, 3, 4, 25, took about 2 hours, 1650 yuan for 3 people. There were an extraordinary number of tourists today, mostly primary and secondary school students. One guide for the special caves had to lead a group of over 20 people. Yulin Grottoes have only 12 guides in total. The daily limit is 2800 visitors. Regular tickets must be purchased on the app. We quickly reserved the special caves at the entrance for the 10-11 am slot. This decision was absolutely right, because after we finished visiting the special caves, we found that reservations for special caves were already pushed to after 2 pm. We first visited the regular caves, seeing 5 caves in about 50 minutes. The first and last were rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty and not worth seeing; only the three middle caves were worthwhile. The visit ended at 11:40, and the special cave visit started at around 11:50. We quickly ate the dry food we had brought as lunch. Deep in the desert, Yulin Grottoes are completely different from typical tourist spots. The driver told us to bring plenty of food and water; only when we got there did we understand that except for a small cultural and creative shop, nothing was sold. This year they opened an internal restaurant, but reportedly it is expensive. Therefore, if you plan to see the special caves, it is strongly recommended to prepare dry food in advance. Also, you must come in the morning. If you come in the afternoon, you definitely won't be able to see the special caves because morning visitors will have reserved all afternoon slots. Our experience: after visiting the regular caves, most tourists will reserve tickets for the special caves. After all, isn't the purpose of coming to Yulin Grottoes to see the special caves?
At 11:55 we started visiting the special caves. There were many tourists today, even for the special caves. One guide led a group of nearly 20 people. This experience was incomparable to seeing special caves at Maiji Mountain. What a nostalgia. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed inside the caves; we could only hope our brains were good enough to deeply remember the magnificent paintings and their essence. Of course, there were regrets: many special caves that were previously open are now closed to the public, since the oxidation of mural colors is ultimately inevitable. Zhang Daqian once copied the "Water Moon Guanyin" (right side) from Cave 2 here, and it fetched over 100 million yuan at auction—let alone the original from 1,600 years ago. After listening to explanations of 5 regular caves and 4 special caves continuously, our feet were sore from standing. Luckily the caves were cool; but outside it was high heat. Yulin Grottoes have too few caves, and even fewer are open to the public. When the crowd is slightly larger, we have to wait to enter in batches.
Leaving Yulin Grottoes, we passed Pochengzi, a remnant city from the Jin Dynasty, and took a few photos. At 4 pm we arrived at the railway station. I originally thought that going only to Yulin Grottoes today, including round-trip travel time, 7 hours would be enough. But it turned out to be a bit tight. If we had set out half an hour earlier and arrived at Yulin Grottoes before 10 am, it would have been more relaxed. In comparison, if departing from Dunhuang, you can only stay at Yulin Grottoes for a maximum of 3 hours, just seeing the regular caves—basically a wasted trip.
We boarded the 4:24 pm bullet train D2752 to Dunhuang and arrived at Dunhuang at 5:20 pm. We took a taxi and reached the hotel at 5:45 pm, fare 26 yuan. We checked into GreenTree Inn, family room 187 yuan without breakfast. It is said that after mid-July, Dunhuang enters the peak season and room prices double. Based on the driver's recommendation, we decided on the spot to watch the "Again See Dunhuang" show at 7 pm. The show price just rose on June 30 this year, from 298 to 318 yuan. The driver arranged for us a special price of 300 yuan including round-trip transfer. The show ended at 8:30. Dunhuang has three performances; this one is the most distinctive. The lighting and sound effects were excellent, worth watching. At least 1,000 people attended the show. We returned to the hotel at 9 pm.
