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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Silk Route Day 5: Highlight of Lanzhou: Bingling Grottoe

The bus station is very near the Love Youth hostel within a walking distance. It is a local bus to a town called Liujiaxia which we alight before we reach the town. The distance is around 1.5 hours.

We drop off at the roadside entrance to the attraction and it is advisable to let the bus driver know that you need to go Bingling and inform when reach.

All tourist need to take a boat (12pax) to Bingling. The journey around 45 minutes where we reach Bingling at 11:45am and the boat will depart back to the entrance at 1pm and we just had an hour to visit the grottoes.

Since we don’t have much time and we purchase the minimum ticket RMB50 to see the basic Big Buddha only. The boat depart and we reach back the entrance at around 1:45pm, then we continue with the lunch at a café near the entrance for Lanzhou beef La mien.

Attached photos is the scenery at Bingling Grottoes

There are some local transfer at the entrance of the Bingling boat center to the town Liuxiajia where we can take the local bus back to Lanzhou.












After refresh at the hostel, then we check out and head on to the train station to continue our journey to Jiayuguan. We took the 9pm train.


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Silk Route Day 4: Journey to Lanzhou

Today is a relax day with train journey to Lanzhou. We have a late wake up and follow by a street breakfast like Kebab and walk toward the road end of muslim quarter where it is very near the Ancient International Youth Hostel within a short walking distance. We took the metro back to Wulukou station which is the nearest station for the Railway.

We reached 2 hour ahead as there are double screening on the bags and it look easy and not that complicated. There are waiting areas for hard seat and soft sleeper section and the soft sleeper consider like different section for the train. Our train depart at 1:30pm and reach Lanzhou at 8:30pm.

Attached photos is the sample train sleeper and seater for China Railway.

We took a local bus number 1 to the Love Youth Hostel where the hostel surprise us as it actually located at a normal residence apartments where is almost occupied by locals and the cleanliness is not up to standard. Anyway it is just a night before we heading out and it is a good experience with the locals. Atleast the host is quite reasonable and guide us on the tour to Bingling Grottoes.





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Silk Route Day 3: Highlight of Xi’an: Terracotta warrior & Emperor Qin Mausoleum

Our main attraction start from today as we have our breakfast at 8am then we took the metro to Wulokou station which is the nearest station to Xi’an Railway station where there is a tourist bus 306 to the Terracotta Warriors Heritage site with just RMB 7 straight to the bus station of the site. The entrance of terracotta is on the left of the station (facing the main road). The combine entrance ticket is cost RMB 150.

There are 3 pit sites at the Terracotta warrior site where the main pit is the largest excavation site of terracotta warriors follow by pit 3 where the command post with high rank officers.

The pit 2 is the site where the infantry like kneeling archers is found. There is a believes at this sites where we need to follow the flow and never walk backward which impact feng shui. Interesting theory that shared by the guide which personally believe it is a business and marketing strategy to force consumer to purchase the souvenir after Pit 1 & 3 before going to pit 2. Just beware and take note !!!

We reached back Xi’an at 3:30pm and went to Bank of China for the money exchange for US dollar and in China we only can change at the bank. After settled the money exchange then we rush to the small goose pagoda at 5:30pm and it closed. So we just manage to snap the entrance and a little glimpse of the pagoda peak at the car park. We quickly head to the Big goose pagoda for the 8:30pm fountain light show which is reasonable basic with no hooha. After the show we continue to the Bell tower by tuk tuk. We head on to the Muslim Quarter night markets which quite worth it and it has all the local muslim delight along the night markets. There goes our second tiring day at Xi’an.


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Silk Route Day 2: Exploring Xi’an to Daming & Xi’an Ancient Wall

We start our day tour at 10am with a local food Bieng Bieng mee along the road of the ancient international youth hostel. Then we took the metro to Daming palace. The excavation palace is situated at the huge park where it is advisable to take the RMB20 tram which included inside & outside the Daming palace entrance. There is a nice museum air conditional where you can take a break before heading to the hot sunny palace site. The favourite attraction at Daming is the miniature version of the palace where we can imagine how real the whole palace in reality.

Then we took a light walk to the Xi’an Railway station to get all our 3 railway tickets before heading to our late lunch.

After lunch we took a train from Wulokou to Yongninmen to view the Xi’an City wall at sunset. Then we walk to Shuyuenmen for the cultural street but the street almost close because it is too late after the sunset.

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