Blogs from Gansu, China, Asia

On my second day at Ma Ti Si I rode to another grotto, 13km away. The Tibetan guesthouse owners had told me there was a road to go to Guan Yin Dong. What they didn’t tell me (or did I miss it?) was that the road was unpaved and VERY bumpy! It took me 90 minutes to cover the 13km. The scenery was splendid though! I took (too) many pictures and I imagined building a little summer mud house for the future… Fields were covered in blue-purple flowers (I don’t know what they’re called, but I’ll find out) and I only ran into a couple of tractors and local farmers on their motorbikes. The only noise was that of cuckoo birds and bees: soooo relaxing! The grotto was also very cool. Built up the red cliff ... read more

Last year I spent a week in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, China, and I met quite a few Chinese tourists who showed me pictures of a place in Gansu Province where mountains were a palette of warm colors. This place was Danxia, 45 km from Zhangye and I knew it would be on my bike route for 2013. So here is Dan Xia Geopark. It is a unique place and I spent the whole day with my mouth wide open, dazzled by this unique scenery of red sandstone. The colors of the mountains look fake, as if a child had used gigantic color pencils on them. Erosion and wind have shaped marvelous looking cliffs with different shades of red, yellow and brown strips of sedimentary rock. Pictures are worth a thousand words so I’ll ... read more

Voila Ma Ti Si ! Je n’en avais jamais entendu parler avant d'entreprendre ce voyage et j’espère sincèrement que ce lieu magique restera inconnu du grand public et des millions de touristes chinois car tout est tellement mieux quand un superbe endroit demeure secret. Imaginez des temples construits sur des falaises de roche jaune. Non, pas SUR les falaises mais dans les falaises. Imaginez des moines et des fermiers creuser des tunnels a la verticale DANS la falaise afin de créer des niches en haut pour que les moines puissent se recueillir et admirer la vue sur les prairies. Imaginez que ces temples des falaises soient situés au pied de montagnes aux neiges éternelles, juste au-dessus de forets de pins qui sentent si bon. Imaginez des troupeaux de moutons jouant les acrobates sur les pans de ... read more

In order to get to Xinjiang Province I have decided to cross the Hexi Corridor, which is the Northern Silk Road, the historical route that connects China to Central Asia. To the north of the Gansu Corridor lies the sandy Gobi Desert, to the south is the Tibetan Plateau and its colorful mountains. I entered the Gansu corridor through Wuwei. Wuwei is a small city that is rapidly developing and modernizing around its central square. I enjoyed the many temples and the slow pace the city offers. It has a long pedestrian street (filled with the same shops we can find in any Chinese city) as well as remains of the fortified wall that used to circle the city. I suppose that the locals do not often see foreigners in town because everyone stared at me ... read more

Lanzhou. One day in a typical Chinese city. I only spent a short day in Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu province. There are quite a few parks and temples around Lanzhou but I found this city pretty crowded, messy and noisy (It’s a Chinese city!) and I was really looking forward to hitting the road towards the countryside. After an overnight train ride from Beijing I quickly found a hotel, dropped my bags and jumped in a bus to go fetch my bicycle I had shipped here from Fuzhou a few weeks ago. The depot was located in the outskirts of the city and it took me quite a bit of time to find it. I quickly put my bike back together and I started riding throughout Lanzhou. Lanzhou is stuck between 2 mountains that ... read more