A cave church in Cappadocia, Turkey
Frescoes in a cave church
Byzantine art or instruction? An artist rendition of a passage in Ezekiel Chapter one. This is still today an incredible piece of work. Most visitors don't know it, they waltz in, take a look and off they go, not realising what they are seeing. I have yet to see this in any church and in any other cave churches. Some motifs are repeated in all the cave churches but not this.
Not everyone in China is Han Chinese. China has some 56 registered minorities but there are in reality more than that. Here is a typical Nasi woman in their 'costumes.'
A mud house in Yunnan province, China.
They still use the backs of animals as well as their own.
While the young people are in the cities making money, the elderly stays at home to look after the grand kids.
I could stay at home and save a lot of money or I could go out there and experience all this. While I do travel cheaply, I still have more comforts than my predecessors like Marco Polo, Ella Maillart, Sven Hedin and all the others before me. I'm ashamed to put myself in their category, I don't have that audacity. I would miss out on all these experiences if I'd stayed at home. Instead I go out to the market place everyday, endure the rigors of work, make and save some money so I can do this all over again. The world is an amazing place, the contrasts of visiting cave churches in Cappadocia and the bucolic countryside of Yunnan, China, in this case, Lijiang in particular. There is no comparison in being there and not being there.
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