A G: Silk Road - Dunhuang 鸣沙山月牙泉 by Aaron （Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Moon Lake）

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Silk Road - Dunhuang 鸣沙山月牙泉 by Aaron （Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Moon Lake）

Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Moon Lake

~Aaron

The Silk Road

Silk Road Day 2 & 3:

Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Moon Lake

Entrance Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Moon Lake

The Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Moon Lake are awesome. Even though it was fun, the Echoing Sand Mountain can burn your feet at noon. The Crescent Moon Lake has lots of history for its size (218 meters east-west, 54 meters north-south).

Sunset view of Crescent Moon Lake from Echoing Sand Mountain

Making sand dunes

Making sand dunes in the sunset
see the crowds
on the mountain top
waiting for sunset

The Echoing Sand Mountain (鸣沙山) is actually a lot of sand dunes moved by the wind! The dunes takes its name from the sounds made by the sand as the wind sweeps across the desert. My brother and I thought it was very fun. We made mini sand dunes in the evening sunlight. My whole family and I left the dune after night.

A caravan

Closer look at beautiful Crescent Moon Lake
Mirror of the sky,
eyes of the desert,
and a paradise in the starlight

Crescent Moon Lake

Salix matsudana

旱柳

The following morning, all of us went to the about 2,000 year old Crescent Moon Lake （月牙泉） in the middle of the Echoing Sand Mountain. The beautiful lake was always described as mirror of the sky, eyes of the desert, and a paradise in the starlight. It was shaped like a crescent moon and had a patch of wet sand nearby where we built things. The water level was 5 meters in 1960, then under 1 meter in the 1990s. It was refilled with water later, and has started to increase in water levels since then. We also saw a special type of tree specifically for the desert， Salix matsudana (旱柳). It was hot by then, so we hurriedly left the dunes.

Crescent Moon Lake

Playing with wet sand

at Crescent Moon Lake

Mingyue Pavilion at

Crescent Moon Lake

Camel riding

The caravan

Camel riding

Waiting for the sunset

During the evening, we came back to the Echoing Sand Mountain. This time, we rode camels up to the top of a hill. After climbing up, we slid back (滑沙) down to where the camels were waiting. Once we got back to the Crescent Moon Lake, it was almost sunset. We climbed and walked across sand dunes, before getting to the perfect spot to build a dune and view the beautiful sunset.

Beautiful sunset

These two places are both very cool. The Echoing Sand Mountain is wonderful with warm sand at night. The Crescent Moon Lake is very famous because of its restoration. Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Moon Lake are amazing and fun places to visit.