wow.... most of the pictures is nice, vivid and sharp.....
real nice.....a lot of places tooo..........

TQ..TQ..

Mogao Grottoes

9 tiered pagoda
The structure that is representative of the Mogao Grottoes.Taken from the tiny shops that were strategically located outside of the Grottoes. As cameras are not allowed into the caves, this is about the only view visitor gets on the Mogao caves.




Ancient archway
This looks really old. Note the curved lines of the roof .


Curved roof
Another view of the entrance archway



Close-up.
Since cameras are prohibited in the cave area, this was taken from outside of the gate. In each of these openings found all over the mountain, are statues and murals Buddhist art. At present, 492 caves remain, containing some 2,100 colored statues and 45,000 square meters of murals. These murals, if joined together, would cover a length of 30 kilometers!

Just realised that it was almost a year since my trip and I have yet to sort out all the photos of the trip!...so did a bit of work and thought I'll post some of them pix here.

Jiaohe

10km west of Turpan, one of the caravan stops on Silk Route of old. One interesting feature is that the city was carved out of an plateau; The city was cut out from under the ground rather than built up from the ground.


Dug-out City of Old.
Note the flat top landscape.



Ruins of what used to be a great city built in the 2nd century and abandoned in the 14th century.



Niche in the wall.
Part of a crumbled wall that held sculptures of Buddha images.



A window view of the surrounding cliffs of Jiaohe, which provided a natural barrier against invasion and cultural intrusion.

Ancient archway is nice....
with a lot of shadows....feels dif somehow....

Really nice sight. One day, I'm going to visit there

Hmm... I saw some picture present with dust. Is the dust went into the sensor?

Fine dust got into the camera,esp in the desert area..won't be surprised if some of it got into the sensor.
The places were all covered with fine dust. The locals go around masked like this



Gobi Desert

Leaving our mark on the desert


Care to slide?
Walking up the slopes of fine sand wasn't as easy as it looked.Our feet sank into the sand as we put each foot out. It was a dizzy height at the top; but had no choice but to slide our way down....







Crescent Moon Spring
A spring that in the middle of the desert...yes, shaped like the crescent moon

when did you go on your silk road trip?
what's the duration of the journey?

This post has been edited by gold3knight: Oct 16 2006, 06:42 PM

+- 3 weeks, at about the same time last year.

This post has been edited by ??!!: May 30 2007, 01:55 PM

Too lazy to process balance of the Silk Road pics.
Adding my recent Xi'an pix here altho' it's taken 2 years apart as Xi'an forms the last stop in China of the old Silk Road route.

Xi'an is kind of boring in comparison to other parts of the silk road. The only special feature is the old city wall that still stands today.It goes all round the city; with 4 main towers/gates.

Drum Tower



View from below the tower



Bell Tower, which together with the Drum Tower; forms the geographical centre of downtown Xi'an



'Nan Men' aka South Tower of old city gate of Xian



Great setting for Mid Autumn Festival here...complete with lanterns and full moon

??!! has returned. Could have used lower ISO for the first pic there, since you're using tripod. dun worry about handshake.
2nd pic is the best. Sui.
all the towers look fantastic. Colorful and looks properly preserved.

For 1st pix, used ISO 100. Think that's the lowest my 350D can go.

All these are my first real attempt at night photography. Find them challenging as had to guesstimate the settings all the time.

Any sifu had tips on some general rule-of-thumb to follow?

Thx Knight for your encouraging words!
Yeah, they've done a good job at preserving their bits of history.
M'sia could learn a little of this from them...bringing them big tourist dollars!