Imperial Mausoleum of XiXia Dynasty

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The Imperial Mausoleum of Xixia Dynasty was the second place visited after the Helan Shan. It is located at the foot of the Helan Mountain in the autonomous region of Ningxia, bordering Inner Mongolia.

To reach the archaeological site, I caught the bus "101A" but it is not the only one that goes to the western part of the city, so if it happens to miss it you just wait for a few minutes and another one will appear.

While waiting for the bus from the chaotic Yinchuan bus station, I had some stock of provisions for my trip, looked inside the many shops on the street, to see if I found something which I needed and setting off to the archaeological site which is about 30 km. west of Yinchuan City.

I am always attracted and fascinated by the ancient nomad imperial's ruins. The archaeological site is pretty vast and there are nine imperial tombs and 254 tombs of imperial relatives and officials.

I explored the imperial tombs by walk but there is also a car shuttle touring the travellers around the archaeological site.

I always prefer to take my time, feel the soil like the ancient explores did in the past and lose myself.

It is still well preserved, I liked in particular those hill-like yellow tombs appearing quite spectacular spread on the north-south line and where the old architecture is still visible.

There were still turrets, outer and inner city, stele pavilion, tower-shaped terrace, on which you can still climb and, on top of all this, stunning mountains views surrounding this secluded place.

The XiXia Dynasty Mausoleum is also called the "Oriental pyramid" with a history of almost a thousand years old.

A museum was also built, here, keeping the same and unique structure of the Xixia Dynasty and preserving the culture of this long gone dynasty.

I heard that many travellers skip this little province in the northern part of the country but ,a stop here, I absolutely recommend it and it is not so popular like other destinations, so, if you go for a visit, you will probably not see many tourists and it will seem to have the entire place for yourself to explore.

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