Mogao Caves, Gansu, China

4Zarza's Travels 5:00 PM Jul 15, 2021

Educational, cultural and a genuinely interesting place to visit!
Probably one of the most informative attractions I have been to in China. After buying tickets you go and watch 2 films in 2 different cinema rooms, which tell you all about the history and show some amazing close up graphics of the the caves - they give you a headset for English audio. Following this you go on a tour bus and drive about 15 minutes to the caves, where if you have booked a tour (280RMB) they show you around 8 of caves - a random 8 depending on how busy each cave is. Everyone gets to see the biggest indoor buddah. Tour guide was very knowledgeable and was interesting to hear more about the history of them. Leaving the tour area was very busy, again a barage of selfie sticks! A few restaurants and souvenirs shops around, then a bus back to the ticket centre. Great to see though, and amazing history to learn about. No photos allowed inside the caves, I think tourists should respect this and not be slyly using a go pro to take photos as someone else in the group was!

5C B 5:00 PM Jul 11, 2021

Expensive but worth it
In order to get to the ticket you go to the tourist center and buy your ticket from the window (you will need your passport).. A staff member found us in line and brought us headsets that had the English translations of the two movies. The first was a general history of the town. After the first movie you move to a second theater that has a screen that wraps around onto the ceiling. This has high detail pictures of many of the most famous caves paintings, and is a good place to take pictures as photography is not allowed in the caves. After the second movie you board a bus to the cave. There is a long line that forms but that is for people who are on package tours. There was no clear signage as to where to go, but if you walk toward the entrance, there were some staff members there who directed us to wait for a guide. If you don't speak Chinese you probably could just show them your tickets. After a short wait and some other people were gathered up an English speaking guide appear and took us on the tour of the caves. The tour is impressive, though there are a lot of stairs to go up and down. Which caves they take you in appear to be a bit random, and the guides English, while quite good, was not always able to explain all of the nuances of some of the items. There is also a museum on the way back to the parking lot that has interesting exhibits as well as several reproductions of some of the more famous caves. You can than take the shuttle bus back to the tourist center.