Roadtrip Beijing to Dunhuang and looping back

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Really enjoying this travel story and the photos. Thank you. I didn't make it to Yan'an, but now I've had a good glimpse. It's a popular stop on the "Red Tourism" circuit 红色旅游; historically important in understanding modern China. One of my best friends in Kunming was a civil servant, a government employee, and was keen on 延安。He and his wife had been several times. He had a studious mind and admired many of the Red leaders, then and now.

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Regarding Datong, I forgot to mention, a friend of mine said there's a very interesting documentary called The Mayor of Datong, os something similar. The movie is about how he rebuilt the cuty walls and was a controversial figure. I talked to a few people in Datong and they told me they loved this old mayor. I will look for this movie when I have time. Not clear if it's in Chinese or English or what. 

 

Another quick thought about Pingyao: the lightshow was not worth the wait, it was free, but I wouldn't go out of your way. Another thing, stores and restaurants outside on the city walls are significantly cheaper. Our hotel boss recommended a place outside to by pingyao rou(individually sealed) , which was great and served as a snack throughout the whole trip. 

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Day 7 & 8: Mountains outside of Yan'an

 

Originally I had booked a hotel in Yan'an for two nights, but my wife said it would be fun to stay in a cave in Shaanxi. Once driving through Shaanxi, I saw what she was talking about, there are cave homes everywhere. I also read a Chairman's Bao article about cave homes 窑洞 that said over 30 million people in China live in cave homes. So I picked one about 45 min drive from Yan'an in the mountains. 

We arrived at night and they grilled us up some Shaokao 烧烤. It was fantastic to just sit out in the fresh, crisp mountain air eating and drinking. This was a weekend night and most of the cave rooms were booked, seems people come up from Yan'an for a night of eating and drinking, and then go back to the city in the morning. Someone was having a birthday and singing karaoke.

Local baijiu made from 小米 subtly sweet and the best 烤饼 iv'e ever had.

Cave room in the morning. As you can see, its not a dusty cave, bit rather a room built into the side of a hill. Makes its natually cool, not too hot or cold. This one had a big Kang 炕 bed.

Drove through some really nice countryside to see these canyons called Yucha Canyon. They were quite beautiful and enjoyed seeing them, took about 30 minutes to walk through one and then 20 mis to go through the second. My only complaint was the ticket price was a bit high, you have to pay ticket and a bus from the entrance to the canyon, something like 150rmb per person, but it was a nice day out.

Some chinglish. More cave homes on the roadside.

 

Back to the cave hotel for one more night of Barbecue and mountain air. Originally just planning one night here, but I loved this place, booked a second night, a highlight of the trip.

 

 

 

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Terrific! Thanks for this fine account! I've always wanted to try staying in one of those cave hotels, but never did it. Looks like yours had a good cook and good meals! That is always the high point of one of these "rustic adventure" trips for me. Once at one of these "bed and breakfast" type places in the Yunnan Red Lands 东川红土地，I sent over a round of beers to people on the other side of the dining room who were playing guitar and celebrating something. They turned out to be tourists from Haerbin 哈尔滨。The rest was history! What a blast! 

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On 6/13/2024 at 5:01 AM, abcdefg said:

I sent over a round of beers to people on the other side of the dining room who were playing guitar and celebrating something. They turned out to be tourists from Haerbin 哈尔滨。The rest was history! What a blast! 

Yep, these are the most fun times!

 

 

Day 9: Shaanxi to Gansu, Pingliang 甘肃平凉

 

Starting to feel pressure to get further west as we are already 9 days out, so next stop another pretty long drive. I had not heard of Pingliang before, but a small city and good position made it a logical choice. We decided to take a couple hours of gaosu 高速 tollway and then get off and take secondary highways for better scenery and to save a bit on tolls. 

More cave homes leaving Shaanxi. We passed this big temple, which looked pretty interesting, on the gaosu and I was kind of kicking myself for not seeing the sign beforehand and getting off to take a look. There were several instances of this, where we'd pass something but it was too late. I tried to keep a look out for the brown "tourist/historical site" signs. Some were good, some were goose-chases, some were missed.

 

After a couple hours of driving we stopped off at a museum about traditional Chinese medicine 中药 as we entered Gansu。 Just a little diversion and leg stretch, it was free, which pretty much all the museums were.

A rest stop in Gansu, with the sun beating down. I really liked these rest stops, I'm not sure why. A little break from driving, there were usually just a few people, almost always had a little chat with someone - fellow drivers, truckers, staff -  as they were surprised to see a laowai at a far flung rest area. Surprisingly good and cheap food and snacks as well, plus the ubiquitous hot water so could keep my coffee and tea caffeine intake going. 

 

Got off the gaosu and onto some really charming highways through the countryside and small towns definitely nicer than the 高速 , though of course much slower. Some nice twisty, turny mountain roads, fun driving! I think the cow was surprised to see Beijing plates!

Arrived in Pingliang just as the sun was setting, directly across from the hotel was a mosque. Always good to have a beer after a long drive.

 

 

 

 

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Those highway rest stops always had some interesting snacks. I would imagine they have improved the toilets in most of them since I was there. That was sometimes a challenging feature of long-distance bus travel. (I didn't have a car.)

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Day 10:  Gansu, Pingliang 甘肃平凉

 

Not too much to say about Pingliang, but it was a pleasant medium size city. I was talking to the owner of this baijiu store, he told me the city is around 40% Hui, which makes sense, as I saw a lot of Hui muslim style clothes. I do not think many westerners get to this city, there is no high speed train station and almost everybody looked at me when they saw me. Had some tasty yang you chuanr 羊肉串儿。I saw no Mcdonald's, no Starbucks(did see several Luckin's 瑞幸咖啡 and a kfc）, no sharing bikes, no other westerners. Went to the local history museum which was just "ok", a lot of replicas, but they did specify that they were replicas.

 

On 6/13/2024 at 8:58 PM, abcdefg said:

I would imagine they have improved the toilets in most of them since I was there

I would say the toilets were ok. We never drove more than about 6 hours, so I only used the urinals, but the toilets looked ok, mostly squat obviously. 

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Your photos remind me that one of the glories of places like Pingliang is the small, proprietor-run food places. Mom and pop and maybe one of the kids helping after school. They tend to turn out a short list of regional specialties, and they do those things very, very well. They have no pretensions of being "haute cuisine." Sometimes you go back with the 老板娘 to look at a cold case where "today's vegetables and meats" are displayed. You can choose what you would like to have and then she will suggest how to cook it. The chef whips it up, and presto, a true "family-style" meal. 家常菜  

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On 6/16/2024 at 1:47 AM, abcdefg said:

glories of places like Pingliang is the small, proprietor-run food places

I could not agree with you more. Small mom and pop restaurants in China are some of my favorite restaurants anywhere. Sure sometimes you get a disappointing meal, but most of the time you get fresh, tasty food at a very reasonable price. I have often wondered where they learned to cook, from their family, on the job, a vocational school? Some of the cooking seems really skilled. 

 

The photo of the noodles there was funny because I saw people sitting there with these huge bowls of noodles and I said to my wife there was no way we could each eat that big of a bowl, I suggested we 分享 one bowl. The waitress heard us discussing it and took it upon herself to divide it into two bowls for our convenience, and giving me the slightly bigger portion as I obviously weigh more lol.

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On 6/16/2024 at 9:38 AM, suMMit said:

The waitress heard us discussing it and took it upon herself to divide it into two bowls for our convenience, and giving me the slightly bigger portion as I obviously weigh more lol.

 

I've had things like that happen over and over, from total strangers in China who had nothing to gain and knew they would likely never see me again. Left me with deep admiration of the ordinary people, the 老百姓。China, especially small-town China, is a magical place. 

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Day 10:  Pingliang to Lanzhou 兰州

 

Setting off to Lanzhou my wife saw that we were very near to Kontong mountain in Pingliang. I had also seen that, but I was going to skip it. She said it was pretty important and insisted we go before contumuiing on to Lanzhou. From Wikipedia: Kongtong Mountains (Chinese: 崆峒山; pinyin: Kōngtóng Shān) is one of the sacred mountains of Taoism. It is located in Pingliang City, Gansu Province, People's Republic of China. It is the mythical meeting site between the Yellow Emperor (also known as Huangdi or by his given name 'Xuan Yuan') and Guangchengzi. 

 

You can walk up, but considering we had a long drive ahead, we took the easy option of the cable car.

 

Nice cool air on top and great views.

 

 

 

You walk around the mountain, climbing a few more sets of stairs, along the way there are many different temples. I don't think they are particularly old, but really atmospheric nonetheless. Lovely painting like views of temples on the mountainside. I very much enjoyed stopping here and glad we didn't skip it.

 

 

Pushed on to Lanzhou, about 5 or 6 hours if I remember correctly. There is no "self-serve" in China, always full serve, choice of 92 or 95. Arrived at Lanzhou just as the sunset. Night market across from the hotel for a beer.

 

 

 

 

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Another discovery! The video of the temple, bustling and chanting, took me back. Thanks for giving us a look! Often at such places, one could have one's fortune read by a monk for a modest fee. Typically involved "casting" numbered sticks on the ground as a start, then getting them interpreted by the holy "reader." Done in Chinese, of course. 

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Day 11 and 12: Lanzhou 兰州

 

This was the only city on our trip that I had been to before, but it was a logical stop off.  We ended up staying an extra day to do laundry and some unexpected work that needed doing online.

   

 

Found a perfect hotel, the "Orange Hotel", which is a chain. It is situated right across from the night market, with free parking and free self service laundry for under 300rmb a night. 

 

    

 

Went to two museums, one was the main Lanzhou history museum, well worth visiting

 

   

The other museum was specifically about Dunhuang and Mogao (though in LZ), also worth visiting

 

   

 

Of course had some la mian. Totally random place in a random area and it was excellent.

 

  

 

   

 

   

 

Other than that, just kind of walking around town.

 

 

 

[lordsuso]

Those horses are gorgeous!

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Thanks for posting the trip account and the pix. That hotel was quite a good discovery!

 

As to the 拉面， I never got tired of watching those skilled guys at work, slapping the noodles out on the table and pulling them until they get thin. I tried it once at home in Kunming, and failed miserably, despite watching lots of instructional videos and carefully following a recipe for the dough. They make it look easy, but I assure you, it isn't. 

 

 

[Baihande]

The picture with the mutton heads reminds me of a restaurant I have been to in Konya/Turkey serving mutton heads. That however was more than  50 years ago, don't know whether it still exists. Also, the heads where boiled, not roasted, and split in two halves. Are there many Muslim in Lanzhou? To me the cooks headgear look somewhat Islamic.

Thanks again for your posting!

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On 6/30/2024 at 6:42 AM, Baihande said:

Are there many Muslim in Lanzhou? To me the cooks headgear look somewhat Islamic.

 

I'm not the Original Poster, but I've been to Lanzhou a couple of times. It has a large Muslim population, and many or most of these hand-pulled noodle 拉面 shops are operated by Muslim people, wearing the usual caps. 

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Day 13: Lanzhou to Ulan, QingHai 茶卡湖

 

This day was definitely all about the drive and the scenery. I was a little concerned about whether there were any permits needed in Qinghai and whether a couple of the drives would be too long. So there was a choice: 1  go from Lanzhou through QingHai to Dunhuang and loop back down through Gansu. 2: Go from Lanzhou up to Dunhuang and comeback through Gansu towards Beijing roughly the Sameway. While we could definitely stop at different places in Gansu and take some different smaller roads each direction, still looping through Qinghai sounded more exciting. So we chose the Qinghai route.

 

 

   

 

Leaving Gansu passed some pretty cool looking temples a long the highway. Danger, Will Robinson.

 

   

 

 

 

As soon as we crossed into 青海 there was definitely a different flavor. 

 

 

 

    

 

  

 

 

 

We wanted to stop off at Qinghai lake, though I really didn't want to pay for a ticket to go to see a lake. There were two ways we could drive and the smaller road went right along the lake for around 2 hours, so I figured we could stop somewhere there and get a view off the lake. That hunch was correct, saw a spot where some other people were stopped along the highway and enjoyed the beautiful weather and views.

 

 

 

  

 

More nice scenery between Qinghai Lake and Chaka salt lake

 

 

Arrived at Chaka 茶卡湖 in time for a nice cold beer at the hotel bar. Really liked this hotel, will post about it next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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That is wild and beautiful country. Thanks for the look. Plus it always takes me by surprise to get out of the vehicle and walk around at 3,000 meters elevation and realize that it takes effort to breathe. I had a friend in Kunming who had served with the PLA in Tibet, not far from Qinghai. He loved it there but couldn't tolerate the altitude, no matter how hard he tried. Finally had to be re-assigned to a lower altitude. 

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Day 14 & 15: Ulan, QingHai 茶卡湖 Chaka Salt Lake

 

  

 

  

 

 

 

I really liked this hotel. Little cottages with glass ceilings so you could see the stars at night, unfortunately it was cloudy both days we stayed. Each room had shower, toilet, sink and comfortable bed, and pretty inexpensive, around 160rmb a night I think. There was also a nice little bar as well. We stayed two nights, not because there was that much to do there, but I had some work to take care of online, and it was a good spot to stay put for an extra day.

 

   

 

  

 

  

 

Chaka Salt Lake was a pretty enjoyable day out, and just happened to be free for the whole month, because they were doing some construction. Salt is still produced on the otherwise of the lake and make for a good, cheap souvenir.

 

  

 

As @abcdefg mentioned, this part of Qinghai is over 3000 meters. I most mostly unaffected, but my wife was feeling it, so we both took some TCM and she used the oxygen now and then.

 

    

 

There was a pretty good 四川 restaurant down the street from the hotel which we enjoyed. Actually most of the restaurants were Sichuan, I don't know if it's because its the neighboring province or why, but it was very tasty. The diners at table next to us had THE most obvious Beijing accents, so we started chatting with them. They were shocked that we had driven from Beijing, they had flown to Xining and hired a driver to take them to various places in Qinghai.