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"pretendes que la vida
se acabe doblando
sobre sí misma
cuando realmente
conoces el viaje
hacia ese lugar remoto"
"pretend that life
folding runs
on itself
when really
know the trip
to that remote location "
(Fotografía y prosa: Emili Bermúdez)
One million Nigerien children under five - more than 1 in 4 - are at high risk of acute malnutrition in 2013. ECHO field experts carry out a monitoring of Concern Worlwide programmes in Tahoua district. The NGO provides support to the district hospital of Tahoua in order to improve care for severely undernourished children. It also helps run integrated nutrition and health care services at the community level, often in remote villages hardest hit by drought and increased food prices.
©EU/ECHO/Anouk Delafortrie
iMON Pad Remote Control – Zalman HD503 - publicphoto.org/technology/imon-pad-remote-control-zalman... (Editorial Only)
Remote Nikon D-1X camera & hardware for backboard remote at SUNY Orange college for the Section 9 Class AA Boys & Girls Championship games in Middletown, NY on Saturday morning, March 1, 2008. Times Herald-Record/CHET GORDON
For me, Dunhuang was the main motivation for seeing Gansu province. It’s the “western frontier” city that served as entry into China proper for centuries of Silk Road travelers. (From Dunhuang, travelers would pass through the funnel of the Hexi Corridor created by the Qilianshan Mountains on the south and the Gobi Desert on the north.)
In short, Dunhuang is where China opens up. There aren’t many people living in the west – certainly not by China’s standards (or most people’s, for that matter). The skies out here are – believe it or not – blue, and it’s recommended that you even use sunscreen. I managed to actual get a slight tan out here.
Life feels much more relaxed out in western Gansu. Things are spread out (cities, or lack thereof) and you don’t feel the same sense of congestion and in-your-face neon that you get in the major cities in eastern China. I’m not sure of Dunhuang’s population, but can say that the downtown area just felt small…ten square blocks by ten square blocks, at most. (There is an “everyday” Dunhuang where most people live – and most tourists don’t see – that you find on regional bus excursions. That part of Dunhuang felt something like the Pudong area of Shanghai, away from downtown, where people actually lived, worked, ate.)
My Dunhuang part of the Gansu trip, however, started inconspicuously. I remember waking up from my sleeper around four or five in the morning, hoping to see a desert sunrise. There was absolutely no sunrise to be found, though, which dampened my mood considerably. However, I knew I would at least see desert landscape and the sun wouldn’t affect that at all, so I could tolerate the achromatic landscape.
The train rolled into the station on time, around 6:15 a.m., and I slowly walked out of the station, avoiding being fleeced by local taxi drivers as long as possible. (Never having been to Dunhuang, I wasn’t sure, exactly, how far the station was from “downtown” – about 10-15 minutes, it turned out – and though I knew I would be fleeced as a foreigner, I tend not to be excited about being taken for a ride (literally and figuratively) by folks in these various cities.) That being said, it wasn’t terribly expensive, and I expected it, so all was well. But, as I like to travel with doing as little planning/reservations as possible, I simply had the following plan: go to Charley Johng’s Cafe (which sounded interesting, per my trusty Lonely Planet guidebook, and the name of the place reminded me of the song “Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues”).
So, I came rolling up to the door of Charley Johng’s Cafe sometime around 7:15 in the morning…only to find out that they don’t open ‘til 8:30. Fortunately, I pack light, and this was no bother. I just walked to the nearest hotel – next door – booked myself a room for that night and the next (since I had a day to spare that I “stole” from leaving Langmusi out of the southern Gansu part of the trip) and grabbed a very quick catnap.
When I returned to the world in late morning, I went straight back to Charley’s cafe and had a very Chinese breakfast of pancakes and I can’t recall what else. (These pancakes, by the way, were more like blintzes…yet still tasty. Anyway, any American reading this should NOT think of big, fluffy flapjacks.)
Over breakfast, I had a nice conversation with the proprietor about who I was, what I was doing there, foreigners living in Dunhuang – not many, I think – and most importantly for me…things to do in the area.
The two biggest immediate attractions in Dunhuang are the “Singing Sands Mountain and Crescent Moon Lake” and Mogao Caves. Since the dunes were only 6 kilometers due south of town, they were easy to get to (and, really, my only real plan for the entirety of Wednesday). That left my extra day to plan and, in casually mentioning that to Charley (maybe she wasn’t Charley, but we’ll assume otherwise for fun), she recommended 15 hours on a tour bus going almost to the Xinjiang border. Price for that…160 RMB (less than $30) with stops at 7 different places. I had to pay admission prices at any of the places, which was fine. (I think the entire day was less than $80. More to follow…)
For Wednesday, though, it was all about camels and sand dunes. When a lot of people think of the desert, they think of big, sweeping dunes that make you feel the size of an ant, and that’s exactly what these were. This is an outdoor enthusiast’s playground. You can set up with local hotels to camp overnight in the desert, you can paraglide, ride camels (which I did), sandboard (the equivalent of snowboarding), among other things. All of these cost, but none was terribly expensive. Riding a camel for an hour, for instance, cost 100 RMB (less than $20). Entrance to the park, too, was quite cheap from what I recall. I think it was $20 or less.
The “public” part (12.79 sq. km.) of these dunes is a very limited area in comparison with the overall scope of things (212.86 sq. km., with a scenic area of 76.82 sq. km.), but there’s more than enough to do. Besides riding the camel and wandering the 1-2 km along the boardwalk (meandering through the dunes to the Crescent Moon Lake), was more than enough to keep me happy.
After a few hours in the park (and not wanting to sit around the sand for 3-4 hours waiting for sundown), I hopped on a bus and made my way back to downtown Dunhuang. Maybe the visitor center had some sort of informational movie or video or something where I could have passed a few hours (though I don’t recall seeing any such thing when I breezed through) and I could have stayed around for sunset, but I didn’t feel cheated either way.
I left Chengdu to find that half the restaurants in Dunhuang…claim to be Sichuanese. I found that slightly amusing. Though I loved Charley’s, I didn’t want to eat there two to three squares a day. So…I chose one of the local restaurants across the street. One of the things on the menu: camel’s hoof. (They say it is healthy or has a lot of protein. I say: It’s a hoof.) I ate something else. After that, I spent the rest of the day relaxing around town and called it a night at the hotel. Thursday morning at 8:00 on the bus at Charley’s would come soon enough.
As usual, I hope you enjoy the pictures. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions, or suggestions.
It's a corny jumping shot, but i thought it suited the Vegas theme.
About the series: During our engagement, my Fiancée and I thought it would be fun to take our own engagement and wedding portraits. To take photos of both of us I’d set up the camera on a tripod and trigger it either by timer, or from a remote in my hand.
I won 1st place in the International Photography Awards for Wedding for this series!
Strobist info: Flashing using lastolite umbrella boxto the right triggered by PW.
Remote controlled Rover, I challenged myself to make a remote controlled 6x6 with all wheel drive, as small as possible, front and rear steering, suspension and as many lights as I can cram into this model as possible. This model contains 1 buggy motor, 1 pf steering servo, 1 pf v2 IR receiver, 1 pf switch, 4 sets of pf LEDs, 2 pf extension cables and 2 old school lego LED lights (for the flashing lights)
This Canon fitted with a wide-angle zoom is set up to take photos of the player seated to the left of the umpire's chair.
The rice terraces built by the Hani nationality in Yuanyang County are a little known scenic wonder in South-West China's Yunnan province. Dropping from near the summits of the 2500 metre Ailao Mountain Range to the deep cleft of the Red River, they are among the world's most spectacular and extensive terraces. Were they in a more accessible part of China these terraces would already have been heavily developed for tourism, and no doubt lost much of their appeal. Perhaps then it is a blessing in disguise that by accident of modern geography they lie in Yunnan, a province so abundant in natural beauty and diverse scenery that these rice terraces have so far been overlooked. They didn't even make it into the Lonely Planet's section on Yunnan.
Unlike many remote areas though, once you actually get there information is not so hard to come by. An NGO called "World Vision" has been based in Yuanyang Old Town for several years. As well as running a great little coffee shop, it sets up fair-trade co-operatives for ethnic arts and crafts, trains villagers in basic English so they can work as mountain guides, lobbies for UNESCO status, and generally tries to set up a sustainable tourism network in the area, one that actually benefits the local minority groups as opposed to Han business and political circles in Kunming or beyond.
I spoke with the main organiser of the project in Yuanyang and he told me of the difficulties they face. The NGO's work is done under the perennial threat of the locals they are trying to help deciding to down their tools and leaving for the city, often defaulting on micro-credit loans. There is also the threat of the provincial government finally deciding to pump cash and concrete into the area in the form of huge tourist resorts, or the threat of a change in local politics meaning their presence is no longer welcome in that county. Perhaps most of all, there is the danger that that they may wake up one morning and realise that everything they are trying to achieve may ultimately be futile.