Slot canyons and red rocks aren’t something people picture when envisioning China, but it’s actually home to some spectacular desert scenery.
While in northern Gansu we explored a couple of stunning sights which we accessed from the friendly town of Zhangye. The first park was Pingshanhu Canyon, and it sat just a stone’s throw from Inner Mongolia, so we unexpectedly passed camels along the drive.
A park bus then took us the final leg of the journey to the canyon, where we started exploring red rock ledges before descending into the canyons which snaked below us. Once we reached the bottom, we walked beneath towering orange walls shaped and carved by the elements.
The sun hit one side, causing the wall to glow warmly, while the opposite side remained dark in the shadows. It was an easy route until we wiggled and contorted our bodies through a slot canyon, which led us to a dead end, and the only way out was via a ladder that seemed to continue for infinity.
A metal barrier curved around the ladder, as a little safety precaution, but it wouldn’t help much if you slipped. My legs became a bit jittery and I was trying my best not to look down. With sweaty palms and feet, I eventually arrived at the top – relieved that it was over.
We descended into one more canyon where the weathered walls towered above us, and this time, we didn’t have to ascend a ladder, we climbed up a multi-storey staircase – because we’re in China and they love to build unexpected structures in nature.
The final desert sight was a much more famous one – Danxia National Geopark aka China’s rainbow mountains.
It was a place I really wanted to visit, but I was worried it would leave us disappointed because it’s hard to tell if the mountains are as colourful as they look in photos, or if someone’s edited the picture too much.
We opted to stay in a guesthouse which was within walking distance to the park, so we could maximise our time and see the park at sunset. We entered at around 2pm and hopped onto the park bus which dropped us at four different viewing areas, each one with a short but sometimes steep walk.
As the bus rounded a bend, relief swept over me – the mountains were incredible! The bizarre colourful hills are a result of sandstone and mineral deposits that eroded into odd shapes over the course of millennia and they looked fabulous. The colours ranged from white and yellow to orange and red, often striped, giving them that dreamy rainbow effect.
Each viewpoint offered something special, but the fourth one was my favourite, with an intense contrast between the yellow and orange stripes. This was the viewpoint we wanted to be at for sunset, but we still had a few hours until it was happening and we weren’t allowed to exit and re-enter the park. So, we decided to take a bus to the start and see all of the viewpoints for a second time, and already they had become more vibrant from the lower sun.
By the time we got to the fourth viewpoint, we realised maybe we’d left it a bit too late – while sunset was still a while away, shadows were being cast across the hills and blocking some of the views.
While the park was relatively quiet when we visited in the afternoon, the numbers really picked up in the evening with huge crowds covering viewing platform number four. It didn’t help that a cloudy haze came out of nowhere, which meant everyone stayed longer, hoping that the cloud would clear and the colours would pop. Eventually, a gap in the cloud revealed the intense kaleidoscope of colours which were much more vibrant than earlier.
I was worried that after visiting a few different desert landscapes in Gansu and Qinghai, the scenery would start to bore us, but each place had its own charm and unique features.
Further west we explored the Silk Road Town of Jiayuguan where we did a day trip to visit the end of the Great Wall of China, known as the ‘Overhanging Great Wall’. It’s believed to have been constructed in 1539, but it was reconstructed in 1987. It was a short but steep route climbing up the many steps to the top tower where we got a vast view of the barren Gobi Desert, backed by rolling arid hills and snowcapped peaks.
We caught a Didi taxi to the sight but when we went to return there weren’t any available in the area, so we attempted to hitchhike which turned out to be very easy. The first car picked us up and drove us back to the city which we were very grateful for.
The next day we visited a lesser-known sight called Wenshu Temple. It was a complex of cave dwellings and Tibetan temples built into the desert walls. The artwork inside some of the temples was quite interesting, depicting horrific scenes like humans being cooked in pots, eaten by giant snakes, decapitated and hung.
It was a sweltering hot day so I was really struggling as we wandered up stairs to explore more temples. It was a relief when we stepped inside a cave temple where we felt the temperature instantly drop like natural air conditioning. When it was time to head back to town, we had even bigger problems because we were in a much quieter area with very few cars going back to town.
Eventually we hitched a ride but they insisted on taking us in the wrong direction so we could take a bus, so we ended up getting out in the middle of nowhere until another car stopped. Inside was a lovely Uyghur guy who insisted on getting out of the car at the end of the journey so we could have a photo taken together – what a lovely end to our time on the Chinese Silk Road.
