Zhangye, Gansu

6 September

China is home to a host of landscapes as various and diverse as the one which can be found in the United States of America. I have remarked many times that the weather in Shanghai, my current home base, is remarkably similar to my hometown of Saint Louis, Missouri. The Summers are dripping in humidity, the Falls are clear and cool, the Winters relatively mild, and the Springs rainy. I should note here that it just doesn't snow, ice, or tornado in Shanghai. In the very noble attempt to escape the humid Summer, my friends and I ventured out to the desert..... Having never been to a desert, I am taking these Californians at their word that a dry heat is infinitely preferred to a humid heat.

In any case, we four board our plane to Zhangye, Gansu, China. We were the only non-Chinese on this plane. At boarding, the plane was already a solid 2 hours delayed, typical in China, so as good examples of Western behavior we each board the plane holding several bottles of beer. Turned out to be a good thing, the plane was fresh out!

At the Zhangye Airport, they just let you wander around!

A quick word on Gansu, and Zhangye in particular. Westerners have very few reasons to go to this province and even fewer to go to Zhangye itself. There is little in the way of economic development and little in the way of tourism. We stayed at one of five hotels listing online, and our direct flight from Shanghai is a summer seasonal --- other times of the year you will have to transfer at least once to get to Zhangye. Even so, the direct flight goes out, deplanes, re-fuels, re-boards and turns right back to Shanghai! If you do go out here, get a guide! I am not one for guides, but everything we traveled to is at least 1 hour from Zhangye city proper, so it is not worth the time and money figuring out taxis and buses.

Our guide Simon picked us up with more cold beer when our flight landed past midnight instead of the scheduled 9pm. Spoke fluent English to give us as much information as we wanted about what we were seeing or point is in the direction of the toilets. He and a local driver picked us up from our hotel each day at 8:30am and shuttled us through the attractions at our own pace. So we got 2 days of door to door service around rural Gansu, beer, water, and round trip airport transfer with our personal guide and driver. Between 4 people this cost 1,000RMB (includes a substantial tip, like 600+RMB) So again, I say, get a guide!

Gansu in China, and city map of Gansu

Gansu is one of, if not the poorest province in China, though it boasts great historical value. Skipping the prehistoric eras, Gansu straddles the Silk Road and was the epicenter of economic and cultural transmission. It was through this small piece of land that both Buddhism and Islam entered China. Gansu has belonged to the Tibetan Empire, the Uyghur Empire, the Mongul Empire, and a whole host of Chinese Dynasties --- each one left some really cool stuff behind.

Outside the Big Buddha Temple

Our first stop on this adventure was the Big Buddha Temple. Home to the largest reclining, wooden frame and clay Buddha. Simon also provided fun facts for us:

• This is the last temple of the Western Xia people
• We know it is a royal temple because of the dragon and phenoix motif
• Kublai Khan was reportedly born in this temple

Regardless of the truth or fiction, it was a good first stop. You were not supposed to take pictures/ use flash on the Buhhda -- plus he is really big --- so I have no good photos of him.

Wind Chime Incense Burner

Next stop was over an hour outside of town, the Binggon Danxia. This is a National Park full of natural land formation. They are windswept out of sandstone, and create a pretty awesome skyline.

This one is called The Louvre

It is while scrambling up and down the stairs to see these formations that I begin believing my Californian friends. Desert heat is nice. It was something like 38C outside but all the nice dry air and dusty breezes kept us from over-heating.

Because you are going up and down, and around ... you get some time to play with lighting and such for some of these formation. I really wish I could make these panos bigger, but then the viewer has to do that left and right scroll thing to see it... and I feel it losses something.

View from the top

After this, our guide drags up out to the Grasslands. There isn't much out here, but it was pretty cool to see since we went from a low lying dust bowl of a city, up into these barren mountains, and were now in a lush grassland. Tomorrow we would drive through some lush farmland on our way up into the cold mountains ... but that is skipping a head without showing the really good part.

This was a literal Sea of Grass

So this is why we went, the crescendo, why four Americans would take a whole day off work, and put up with the inconvenience of red eye flights and no sleep.

THE DANXIA LANDSCAPE

There are only two places I know of in the world to see something like this -- Southwestern US, on a small scale, and Zhangye, China in a big, big way. The short of it is that really interesting, multi-colored layers of rocks got pushed up to form a mountain range. For the curious:

Wikipedia -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danxia_landform
Tourist Information -- http://www.chinahighlights.com/zhangye/attraction/danxia-landform-geological-park.htm
Professional Photos of the Landforms --  http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2013/aug/01/rainbow-mountains-china-in-pictures

For everybody else, enjoy this little slice of the mysterious and gorgeous planet we call home

So yeah ... that happened before my very eyes. If I was a highly superstitious kind of person, and not surrounded by a couple thousand Chinese tourist, then I would believe that I had either
a) found a gateway to another realm of existence
b) abducted by aliens and sentenced to live on Mars

We watched the sun set on these mountains, and it was like watching the world be set on fire. Everything around you glowed vivid red, yellow, and orange more vivid than any canvas sunset I have seen. Then there was the heat -- the sun beating down behind you, the rocks under your feet, and the people pressing in beside you. The only break was short, dusty wisps that you craved for the coolness on your body and dreaded for the dryness in your throat.

You can believe that half of this is in my head ~ I firmly believe that I could have been baked alive if the sunset had lasted much longer.

*A side note to my photographer father --- I used no filters on these, kept the ISO low (100-500max), my shudder speed I upped as the sun set. For the touch up process, I warmed the colors a bit, and then added a dab of shadow. None of these have been what I would consider heavily edited because I enhanced the existing colors in the photo *

Again the perks of having a personal driver and guide are apparent in that when we exit the park after sun down, our driver is waiting with nice cold water and A/C in the van. No waiting, no haggling, no grumpy tourists. They dropped us back in Zhangye for a very late dinner at a very nice Chinese restaurant whose menu had no English or pictures --- just characters. For many this might seem like an insurmountable task, but Chinese restaurants like American restaurants have a staple of dishes that are pretty much guaranteed to be there, the trick is memorizing them. Or you can be a cheater like me and have a list on your phone and a friend who has some memorized too.

The rest of the time out in Gansu was spent on minor attactions. There was the grottos caves carved into the mountain side and the Zhangye wetlands park. I was completely thrown by that one, but sure enough there was a meticulously maintained wetlands smack in the middle of the dusty city of Zhangye.

We also ran across this tiger and black bear pair selling real estate. Living in China for now over 2 years, this does not shock me ... neither the flagrant disregard for safety; nor the fact I can find no logical reason why this is used as an advertisement. I just know that it if I don't have pictures, then it never happened.

So CONGRATULATIONS my father has successfully bugged enough people into requesting that I make new posts.... I hope you all enjoyed the fruits of your labors! Until next time...