Silk Route Day 14 & 15: Exploring Guangzhou & Flight Back KL

Here is the walking tour of 1 day Guangzhou: -

We start off Guangzhou at 9am to Museum Nanyue King (西汉南越王博物馆) where the metro train stop at Yuexiu Park (blue line) and the Admission is ¥12. It is a nice museum with the history of King Nanyue during the Han Dynasty and also site of the excavation which converted to a museum. Worth a visit during stop at Guangzhou.

We continue the tour to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (中山纪念堂) by stopping at Memorial (blue line). Admission is free for the park and ¥10 to go inside the hall.

We reached at 10am to walk around the park with some Memorial Hall scenery.












We continue the tour to Temple of Six Banyan Trees (六榕寺) dropping at Gongyunqian (blue line) and the admission is ¥5. This temple is just a normal small temple but the main attraction is that the temple is active with local praying. Have a light chiong fun around the temple at 11:30am. There is another attraction at Beijing road where there are many little historical temple and shopping with food around the road.

We continue at 1pm to the Ancestral Temple of the Chen Family (陈家祠) with stop at Chen Clan Acedemy Station (Yellow Line) and the admission is ¥10. Chen Clan place is a historical home with their tradisional home build during Qing dynasty.

Then continue to Culture Park Station(Purple line) reaching at 2:00pm following walk to Shamien Island (沙面岛),

Then another short walk to Shangxiajiu Road to spend some shopping until late noon at around 3pm. Continue the walk to Yide road to have a glimpse at the Sacred Heart Cathedral (石室圣心大教堂) until 4:30pm

Continue to the following metro station Canton Tower (orange line) for the sunset of canton tower at 5:30pm before wrapping up a dim sum dinner at the Canton Tower. Visiting Canton tower in the evening can witness the tower from day to night where is it colourful with lights during night.

Then it is the end of the 2 week Silk Route trip. The flight back KL the next day from Guangzhou Airport.

Silk Route Day 13: Transfer to Guangzhou

Check out at 9am and reach Urumqi Airport at 10am for the flight transfer to Guangzhou.

Flight from 12:50 to 6pm. Guangzhou is a huge modern city with all metro infrastructure developed. I took an airport train transfer until Gangding where the hotel is located. Then walk around the street near the hotel e.g. Shipai East & West where there are many local street food available.


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Silk Route Day 12: Highlight of Urumqi: Heavenly Lake

We depart from the hotel at 8am and the tourist bus reach Heavenly Lake entrance at 10am. The entrance to the top take around 45 minutes. From the top entrance we can either take shuttle for RMB10 or we can walk and it not far anyway from the bus stop to the lake.

Once at the main attraction of heavenly lake there are a lunch stop where local food like naan and lamb kebab is easily spotted. There are few track at the park.

We took the route walk to the ancestor temple and it is about 30 minutes walk per way. The walking tour can enjoy the different scenery of the mountain. You can opt for either trekking or taking the scenery boat which can enjoy the heavenly mountain from the lake.

We depart from the top entrance at 2pm and reach the bottom main entrance at around 3pm. The journey back take around 1.5 hour with a jade shopping stop but we couldn’t wait and decided to take cab back to the hotel. There are an issue on cab and there are many cab may not want to fetch us as they do not know the hotel as they are not local. So be patience when taking cab at Urumqi.

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Silk Route Day 11: Exploring Urumqi: Red Hill & International Bazaar

We had a light Bao/Bun breakfast before 2 group separated and I have to transfer to a different hotel called Yijia City Hotel for check in. The next hotel is located at the city center where it is much easier for me to get around.

It is within walking distance to Red Hill and the International Bazaar.

We walk to the International Bazaar about 30 minutes and have a Muslim/Turkish lunch with Lamb and nasi biryani alike. Then we have a short walk around the bazaar before taking a cab to red hill at around 3pm.

Red hill is a park where we can view the Urumqi city scenery from the peak of the park.

We complete our day tour and walk back to the hotel within a short 30 minutes walk from Red Hill.








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Silk Route Day 10: Reaching & exploring Turpan: Jiaohe, Karaz & Enim Minaret. Transfer to Urumqi

Reaching Turpan at 6:30am then we continue with the car & driver hire as we are rushing and need to transfer to Urumqi the same day. We start off with the Jiaohe ancient city attraction at 9:30am. The whole ancient ruin is huge. We walk to the center where we can have a view of the ancient Jiaohe ruin.

Then we continue the walk to the Grand Temple and the further pagoda where it can take almost 2 hours just for the ruin tour under the hot sunny weather without much shade.

We complete the attraction at 12:15pm and then continue with Karez at 12:30pm. Karez irrigation system is a water system at turpan that show the ancient architecture to channel the water to the town from the mountain. Completed the Karez system at 1pm before heading to the local lamb bbq with dry mee. It is indeed a nice lunch.

Then we continue with the Enim Minaret visit at 2pm for an hour. We depart from Turpan to Urumqi at 4:30pm and it takes around 2 hours to reach Urumqi. Urumqi is indeed a huge city where it is a capital of the Xinjiang Province.

There are many Uighur ethnic at Urumqi and different culture at this city.

We stayed at a home local apartment with nice home decoration and local home feel at the outskirt of city center.









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Silk Route Day 9: Highlight of Dunhuang: Mogao Cave. Then continue train to Turpan

Our main attraction of the whole trip and it is a personal highlight in this trip which is called Mogao Cave the Unesco world heritage site. It is advisable to purchase the ticket earlier as it is limit to 6000 tourist per day. The entrance ticket cost around RMB220. We need to reach the entrance before 8:30 as there are 2 documentary at 8:30am and 9:15am continuously where it is a good planning to watch the first part of the Mogao history and the second part on the virtual tour of the caves. After the 2 documentary video then we need to take a bus transfer to the Mogao Cave for about 30 minutes. It is an amazing world heritage sites where there are ancient murals still exist at the caves but the bad experience is we need to queue up to follow a tour guide which limit us to few caves and also within a short 1 hour tour. It is not enough of the Mogao tour but I have to say it is worth it on the world heritage site visit but not the control tour.

Take note there are 2 museum not to be miss as the first museum near the entrance where it explain murals of Mogao then the second museum near the bus transfer show some additional cave excavation along the Mogao where we can appreciate some additional murals available.

After the cave, the driver pick us up back to the hotel to clean up and then continue to Liuyuan town to take our following train to Turpan at 10:50pm. Liuyuan is 2 hour journey from Dunhuang and all long journey train actually pass by Liuyuan.


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Silk Route Day 8: Exploring Dunhuang; Mingsha Mountain & surrounding city

Dunhuang is the middle of the Silk Route journey and we have 2 full day at Dunhuang to enjoy the trip. We start off with the sunrise as we wake up at 5am then walk to the Mingsha entrance and it open at 6am.

We rush to the foot hill where we need to walk up the sand hill to the peak and the path may need 30 minutes to 45 minutes to walk up and the sunrise is between 7:15 to 7:30am.

It is a nice sunrise view from Mingsha mountain and the whole place is like a theme park where there are many activities for the mainly locals like camel ride, sand slide, helicopter or motorbike etc. We just enjoy the view at the peak until 9am then visit the Cresent Moon Lake and the whole place just need 2 hours if we are not interested with the activities.

We walk to the white horse pagoda

Then continue the walk to the Dunhuang Museum.

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Silk Route Day 7: Journey to Dunhuang passing by Suoyang Ancient City

Today is the car & driver rental from Jiayuguan to Dunhuang while on the way to visit Suoyang Ancient city and Xuanquanchi.

We start our journey at 9am heading to Guazhou for lunch before continue our journey to Suoyang and the journey to Suoyang is tough as we have to pass by the desert road off the beaten track and it is quite bumpy.

The road condition is bad and we reach Suoyang at 3pm with an hour visit. Then we depart at 4pm to Dunhuang and decided to skip Xuanquanchi. We reach Dunhuang around 7:30pm.

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Silk Route Day 6: Journey to Jiayuguan with Fort & Great Wall

We reached Jiayuguan in early morning around 6:30am and we took the local bus to the 7 days Inn hotel and check in at 7:30am and then have a light breakfast before heading to the attraction at 9am.

We took a local bus number 4 to get to the Jiayuguan fort. It is the last bus station at the fort and the local bus transfer number 4 is pretty straight forward. We hire a bicycle for a short ride at the fort and it is a nice breezing morning ride before the actual fort visit.

The whole fort may take 2 hours with relax walk and photos.

Then it is just nice to have a lunch outside the fort where there are many local restaurant along the road outside the fort entrance. Then you may hire cab for around RMB120 for the other 2 attractions as there are no local bus for this attractions.

We depart at 2:30pm and then start off with the overhanging great wall (attached beside photo) for 1 hour at 3pm to 4:15pm. Then continue to the Beacon Tower from 4:30pm to 6:30pm before sending us back to the station to return back to the hotel.

Attached photo is the last attraction view from Beacon Tower.









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