Things to see and do Gansu 甘肃

The lake, between large sand dunes, is formed by spring water. The dunes of Mingshashan form a spectacle that should not be missed. Especially a day of great wind when these sand hills sing, as Marco Polo had already observed. In the rising sun and above all setting, the landscape of the sand mountains is fantastic.

From here you can make camel walks in the desert of Gobi, or "surf of the sands" or paragliding from the top of the dunes. These relatively quiet activities have now added a lot of noisy quad circuits…

This geological park consists of rock formations in the Désert desert. The site is absolutely magnificent, but the visit is disappointing, as organized "to Chinese". A place not to be missed for geology enthusiasts, less for others, especially as the price is prohibitive. A board if your tour tour takes you to: do not pay the entrance ticket and "wait" the end of the tour in the building built at the entrance - with a small museum and some restaurants. Once the buses have gone to the "tour of the site", you will have the exclusive pleasure of enjoying the magic of the Désert desert!

If there was only one reason to come to Zhangye, here she is. This complex - 23,000 m ² - of sumptuous temples and immense historical value (Emperor Kubilay, the first of the Yuan dynasty, would have been born), contains in its largest building a real jewel, a 34.5-meter long Buddha, which would be the longest in the world (or at least China). Built in 1098, its wooden structure, covered with a kind of plaster, has crossed the ages, no less than ten centuries in total! Besides, it's the same Buddha that Marco Polo would have seen and that he tells in his book about the World's Imagination. During the Cultural Revolution, red guards did not have the courage to deteriorate it, but they were still digging a tunnel, as to prove that Buddha sounded hollow. These minor damage was repaired afterwards and the small holes you see on the side of the huge statue are aeration. The rest of the complex presents interesting collections related to the history of the silk road and the spread of Buddhism in China.

An unavoidable visit.

This natural park offers spectacular shows of red rocks and is a good example of the geological features of the region. That said, if you take the bus between Zhangye and Xining (in Qinghai), you will see very similar landscapes. See if you travel along the Lanzhou-Dunhuang axis.