Blogs from Gansu, China, Asia - page 8

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

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

Voici les photos de ma 3e journée de vélo depuis Wuwei. Cette dernière étape m’a mené jusqu’aux grottes Bouddhistes de Ma Ti Si. J’ai parcouru environ 90km (je voyage sans GPS) sur de très belles routes de campagnes. En laissant la ville de Shan Dan derrière moi, je suis tout de suite entré dans le désert. Je me suis cru dans la farwest américain. C’était l’Arizona avec ses immenses valles sablonneuses, jonchées de petits buissons tout grillés. Ca montait, ca descendait ; ce n’était pas de tout repos ! Mais la vue en valait la peine. Je suis en suite descendu dans une vallée très verte et j’ai suivi une longue route toute droite (monotone) avec un sale faux plat qui m’a miné le moral, jusqu'à ce que j’arrive a Min Le, ou après une excellente ... 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

I enjoyed the atmosphere around the Labrang Monastery so much that I ended up spending 6 days in Xiahe. I stayed in a fun guest house held by Tibetan monks where I met some young Chinese tourists, a few foreigners (in China to teach or study), a Chinese teacher who works with orphans, Tibetan men who openly talked to me about the difficulties of being a Tibetan in 2013, and many monks who enjoyed talking about the Dalai Lama but also football and Tony Parker... It was nice to park my bike for a couple of days and go off for long walks in the mountains and through the narrow alleys of the monastery. But I also enjoyed getting back on it and riding to the grasslands of Sangke and Gangia. I think I did about ... read more