Photo credit: Michael Zhao for The New York Times
An intriguing photo at Found Here led me to a NYTimes piece this week on Dunhuang, China. The city developed at an oasis site along the famous Silk Road; current interest centers on harvesting the abundant solar and wind energy of the area.
My interest is in this little gem of a "lake." Crescent Lake has apparently persisted in the midst of these dunes of the Gobi Desert since time immemorial, but the water level has been falling for the last forty years because of water usage elsewhere in the country. More about the lake here. The lake is a World Heritage site that is properly off-limits, but one can't help but daydream about what sorts of things might have fallen into it or been thrown into it by Silk Road travelers for more than a millennium...
Dunhuang is also the site of ancient Buddhist caves covered with art works, including a map of the stars (below) that dates back to the 700s and may have been used to guide ancient travelers, but I don't have time to go into that now. So much stuff to blog, so little time...
