DAY FOUR OF EXPLORING THE QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU | Todd and Ziqin's Travels

The next morning we left the local inn and headed to the adjacent Gansu Province to check out another site–张掖丹霞 (Danxia Mountains in Zhangye).  On our way to the destination, we began to chitchat with our driver, who is a Muslim. We bombarded him with lots of questions, such as their lifestyle, marriage, eating habits and so on. One thing struck me the most was that they had to do worship three times per day, seven days in a row. Since he was constantly on the road, he would have to make it up after he retired, otherwise he would have to get ready for the punishment. It was lunch time when we arrived outside the tourist site. We decided to have a quick bite to eat before we started to check out this place. We went to a Muslim restaurant, because based on our previous experience, Muslim restaurants are cleaner and the food are most tasty. We ordered the Big Plate Stir-fried Chicken.

Judging from the name you can tell it’s a huge dish, in it there was chicken, rice noodles, green pepper, onion and potatoes stir fried together. Yum yum, my mouth is watering as I am typing the words. And most importantly it was huge! After buried in the Big Plate Stir-fried Chicken for half an hour, we couldn’t eat any more but there were still half of it untouched. Todd is always concerned when we eat outside, especially in a Chinese restaurant, where food is not served in separate servings, because I always order more than we could eat. This time, I learnt my lesson, I only ordered one dish and we still didn’t finish it. Guess it’s just my thing. But honestly, it is a good choice for three or four people. After the lunch We moved on to the Gate of the National Part Danxia Mountains. The Danxia land-form is well-known for its unique shapes and the multi-colors. There are four major vistas in the National Park and to get to each one of them, we had to take the shuttle bus run by the park. It is a common practice in most of China’s National Parks, such as the Zhuo’er Mountain we went to yesterday.

Of course, you could choose to walk to different sites, but it is not highly recommended, because there were no places to buy bottle water inside the Park and there was no shade to rest under due to the geography of the area. The first spot we stopped at was actually the biggest one within the Park. As we had enough time to check out the park, we decided to spent a bit longer time to check out this place. There were trails connecting all the sites, just like the ones in the Yellow Stone National Park in the US. I have to admit that it was really mind-blowing. Before we got here, I already saw pictures online, and thought “hum, it is pretty.” However, when you are really personally on the scene, the power of Mother Nature will blow you way. We checked out the “Monkeys Looking Far into the Ocean.” It took us several minutes to locate the monkeys. A couple of tourists aimed at the afar, snapping photos next to us. I thought they figured where the monkeys were but they said they did not, just taking pictures of the entire place so they could go back and check them later.

and “The Sea Shells.”

We reluctantly moved to our next stop. The second one was not a low hanging fruit. To get there, one has to overcome over six hundreds of stairs (My husband counted all the stairs, I will clarify with him on the exact number). We climbed up with the other couple. Many of the tourists gave up the second stop, due to the time limit or the deterrence of so many stairs, but the view on the top was really worth all the work. The rest two sites were not as breathtaking as the first two but had the fascination in their unique way. Later that day we headed back to the city Xi Ning. On the way we stopped to check out different places. It was late June, so the rape flowers were not in full bloom yet, which was a pity. Our driver said that in Mid July and August, the greenfield we saw now would be the oceans of yellow flowers.

But on the bright side, we were saved from being stuck in the traffic for hours, because besides of the oceans of yellow flowers, there would be oceans of visitor as well. We were even able to take pictures on the road.

We also saw the original Silk Road of China. The Silk Road had been the belt connecting the West and East since the Han Dynasty. It fostered the exchanges of trade, commerce and culture between the two continents. However, there were only dilapidated walls stood there, which is really sad. In the face of modernization, do we have to do it as such a high cost?