During my Grand Tour of China in 2007, I visited two stretches of this Silk Road nomination. In Xi'an, where there's a lot to see anyway, I saw the two Wild Goose Pagoda's. According to my notes, I found the Small one "rustic" and the Great one a bit tacky as it is located inside an amusement park. Both sites are well on the beaten track in Xi'an (maybe the city's best-known sites next to the Terracotta Warriors), but I can't say it was a very memorable visit.

Much more interesting was my detour to Gansu Province, in the far northwest of China. After Dunhuang with its Mogao Caves, I rented a taxi for a day and the guy drove me around to all kinds of interesting places. Far, far out in the desert lie the remains of the Yumen Pass. It was very cold (November!), and there were no other people around. Normally you would have to pay an entrance fee, but we were either too early in the day or too late in the season. The Yumen Pass was a former border post of the Han Empire. There's only one bulky structure left. As the temperature was around the freezing point, I just sprinted there to take some pictures and go back quickly to the warmth of the car.

Between Dunhuang and the Yumen Pass lie several other Silk Road-related structures: some are inscribed and others not. A few original Great Wall remains and the ruins of the lost city Hecang (where fiercely barking dogs kept us outside), both inscribed with the Yumen section. And the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, a smaller version of the Mogao Caves, where there were dogs around there too. My driver bravely went on the lookout for the man with the key to open the caves and succeeded so I could sightsee comfortably. There's also an Open Air Museum "Old Dunhuang" which is worth a look for its mud structures.

Finally, on the outskirts of Dunhuang Town we visited the excellent White Horse Pagoda. This is a several-time restored 4th-century pagoda, 12m high. That such beauty was left out of the list of core sites of this nomination, tells a lot of the high standard that was taken in the selection of the 33 final locations.