Travel Schedule
Just for orientation and as continuation of part 1, I will list the travel schedule again:
- Danxia Geopark („Rainbow Mountains“) (near Zhangye)
- Pingshan Lake Grand Canyon (near Zhangye)
- Mati Temple – 马蹄寺 (near Zhangye)
- Zhangye Bhuddist Temple
- Zhangye National Wetland Park
- Ganjia Grasslands
Zhangye, Day 2
How to rent a car in China
We pre-booked a car about 2 weeks ago through the APP „UCAR“. I set the pickup time to 8:30am and arrived at the car rental place around 9:00. So far so good. Of course, the guy there did not speak english, so I had to convey what I wanted in Chinese, which was in the end doable. As it turned out, you are supposed to input your passport number and driver license details into the APP before you pickup the car. Since I had not done that, everything had to be done manually and checked by their headquarters. Also, you need to pay 7,000 Yuan deposit, which is only possible with Alipay or a Chinese Credit card. The whole process took about 2 hours. About 11:00 I was back at the hotel and we started our way to the Danxia Zhangye „Rainbow Mountain“ National park.
Zhangye Danxia Geopark (张掖丹霞地质文化公园)
We went in at the North Gate, bought the tickets for 79 Yuan/person.
From there you take the bus and go to the 5 main areas (there are individual stops and you can walk to the scenic spots.
There are nice tea and coffee shops at every bus stop.
The most magnificent spot was the one nearest to the East gate.
We finished around 16:30 and decided to go further to the „Binggou Danxia Scenic Area“ (the equivalent to monument valley in the USA). Unfortunately, the street had been washed away by the river there and a new road was under construction, so we had to go about 5km on a bumpy mud road. The river right next to us was strong and the water about to overflow onto the „street“, the mud was more than 10cm deep in some areas. (it was really scary at times!)
When we arrived, the lady at the ticket office told us, the park is closed due to the recent thunderstorm. So we headed back and stopped at a Sichuan Restaurant. It was almost empty, perhaps it was too early, it had good reviews. The staff was very surprised to see foreigners and were were eager to serve us a great food. The food was delicious!
Zhangye – Day 3 – Pingshan Lake Grand Canyon (平山湖)
Pingshanhu Grand Canyon is a scenic area about 1 hour north of Zhangye, on the border to Inner Mongolia province. It is very similar to the grand canyon in North America.
We went there by car, I don’t think there are any taxis going so far out of the city. If you should manage to take a taxi, make sure it stays there, we have not seen any taxis there to take people back, only busses.
On the drive to the park, right after the toll gate to the highway, we found an abandoned tourist village (?) in a mongolian tent style. It was really a surreal view. Other than that, there is a lot of vast emptiness out there.
Before entering the actual park, make sure to see the very nice temple (?) in front of the gates. It looked very „Tibetan“.
There are 2 options you can chose from when buying a ticket, route 1 and route 2. Route 1 is basically everything by hiking, route 2 includes a ride on a truck to the bottom and a camel ride. We chose the latter, but in hindsight, it was not worth it. The ride down on the truck/bus (it was a strange kind of vehicle) was a bit scary and quite long.
Arrived at the bottom of the canyon, you can hike for maybe around 1 kilometer and then take a camel ride or chose to hike up 2 vertical ladders (each about 25 meters long). It was actually quite fun, but i suppose for larger people it could be difficult, I had a backpack and it was really narrow. Before you get to the ladders, the canyon gets really narrow as well. If you have been to Antelope Canyon before, it is basically the same experience, just not so colorful.
Back on the top, we stopped for some snacks and drinks and went off into the „hinterland“, meaning outside of the dedicated walkways / main route. We were not really sure if it was allowed or not. One sign clearly mentioned a path to the „eastern forest mountain“, which was visible in the far east. We did not figure it out, but had a great time walking around in the wilderness. The views were absolutely stunning, just nature, nothing else there.
In the wilderness, we were wondering if there are any animals living as it was so green. We managed to see some lizards, which were perfectly camouflaged to the color of the sand, some sort of hamster (?), donkeys and all kind of other small creatures (bugs etc.).
Zhangye Day 3
Mati Temple (马蹄寺)
Mati Temple is located about 1hr 30 minutes south of Zhangye. The road there is a small provincial road, leading up from the city of Zhangye (about 1.600m over sea level) up to 2.600m. The entrance fee is 88 Yuan and it is possible to drive with your own car in the park and stop wherever you like.
The special thing about this temple area is that all the „chambers“ are build into the mountains. It is unbelievable how the Tibetan monks did this about 1,800 years ago. It must have been a tremendous work. There is one huge chamber on the ground level with a huge buddha statue (around 15 meters i guess) and you can go up inside the mountain to all the small chambers.
Please don’t forget that it is not allowed to take pictures of the Buddha statues and other relics!
There is another small area, which is dedicated to a Tibetan, who was crowned king with 16 years age and then eventually united more than 30 tribes. There are also possibilities for horse riding in the area, but i skipped that.
Eventually, when you are done in the main area, there is a road leading to another temple about 20km away, but i didn’t go there, it is most likely a very scenic route through the highlands.
Zhangye Buddhist Temples
Near the center of the city, there are 3 nice temples: Dafo Zen Temple, Xilai Temple and Mutasi.
We visited 2 of them, and even though we are really „saturated“ with temples, the Dafo Zen Temple was impressive, it contained a sleeping Buddha statue which is about 30 meters big among many other relics.
Cultural Sidenote: We didn’t really know where the entrance to the temple was, so we searched around a bit. Doing so, we caught the attention of a bunch of local young men that were sitting in front of a shop. They were so excited to see foreigners and asked us if the could take a photo with us. They called everyone who was around there, even the grandfather and we took a photo together. This kind of authentic, open-hearted friendliness is something we experience all over China! Wherever we go, especially in the more rural areas, people always seem really happy and have a smile on their face and greet you with a genuine smile and even try to strike up a conversation in english, even though.
Zhangye Wetland Park
Located just at the north end of town, there is a enormous wetland park. It is a public park, so there is no cost. You can rent a bicycle and drive around, in total it is about 20-25km drive, depending on which way you go. There are additional footpaths, that are really designed very cute, with small wooden bridges, „outlook towers“ and so on. Each area has a distinct flora, meaning different trees, plants etc. It is really a small paradise and should not be missed on a trip to Zhangye!
Ganjia Grasslands
The last 3 days, we spend on the Tibetan highlands in the southwest of Gansu, near the boarder to Qinghai province.
How to get there?
There are basically 2 options, you can take a flight / train to Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, or to Xining, the capital of Qinghai province. From each locations, it is an approximately 3-4 hours drive, mostly on highways. We drove from Lanzhou and took about 3.5 hours.
The area is a highland plateau with an altitude of about 2,900m. It is a gorgeous natural scenery, basically hills, mountains, grasslands and a whole lot of nothingness. There are still things to do here, from horse riding, quad driving or just hiking.
The gem of our stay was the „hotel“, Ganjia Eco Campsite. It’s basically small beautiful huts in the grassland. The service of the hotel is good, there is a WeChat group, you can chat with the staff and they will support you with any request, although sometimes a little slow.
The temperature is really warm during the day, and the sun intense, as you would expect at that altitude. During the night however, the temperature drops to below 10 degrees and there are occasional storms or at least very strong winds.
Most of the people here belong to the Tibetan culture. It is clearly audible, as they are speaking Tibetan and also the road signs and so on are in Chinese and Tibetan. There is a lot of culture to be discovered, if you ask the people, they will happily introduce their culture to you.
There is plenty of fauna as well, marmots/groundhogs, rabbits, yaksn and horses, just to name a few.
Gan Jiamijing
There is a small nature park near the camp (entrance 40 Yuan per person), called Gan Jiamijing, which features a round trip by a small bus, which stops at different stations in a 20 minutes stop interval.
The first stop is at the „octagonal walled city“, an ancient remnant of a long gone city. The city walls are still recognizable and used as protection form wind for the current city.
Second stop is at a mountain area, inhibited by buddhist monks. It’s amazing how simple the people live here. There is also a great spot to see wild marmots/groundhogs, as they are use to tourists, they are often seen begging for food. Beware, they have very sharp teeth!
From this area, it is also possible to hike further into the mountains, according to the map there must be a lake further up. We did not take the hike.
The last stop is a spot overlooking the whole plateau, monastery and village.
This concludes this trip. I hope I was able to inspire you to visit some of this wonderful locations sometime as well.
2GIC 