6-Day Zhangye and Dunhuang Highlights

Having been an important town on the ancient Silk Road, Zhangye now is not only famous for its long history and splendid culture, but also for the colorful Danxi landscape.

It is easy to arrive in Zhangye from Xi'an or Lanzhou either by high-speed train or flight. On arrival, your hospitable guide and driver will pick you up, transfer you to your hotel, and help you check-in.

Danxia, a unique landscape formed from colored sandstone and minerals after 24 million years of natural erosion, can be aptly translated to Rosy Cloud. As its name reveals, the landscape here seems like colorful rippling waves with vibrant red, orange, yellow, and blue. These colors usually intensify during different times of the day.

Today, after marveling at the Danxia landscape at Zhangye National GeoPark we will visit Mati Temple (about 70 kilometers to Zhangye) to discover its time-honored Buddha statues and temples caved in the cliff. If on a clear day, you can also get a majestic vista of the Qilian Mountain while exploring these temples and caves.

Today, before taking the bullet train to Dunhuang, you will visit the Giant Buddha Temple, the only temple built by the Western Xia, a Tanggut-ruled empire that ruled northwestern China between 1038 and 1227. It is a Buddhist art museum that integrates architecture, murals, sculptures, calligraphy, and historical relics with great significance for studying the cultural exchanges between China and the Western Regions.

Arrive in Dunhuang after about five hours, be picked up and transferred to your hotel for the night.

As a transportation hub and trade center lying on the junction where the two major routes within the Silk Road network meet together, Dunhuang was also a paradise where Eastern and Western civilizations collided and blended. In addition to various commodities, along with the trade also came different religions, languages, arts, and production techniques. Today, through the colorful murals in the most famous Mogao Caves and the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, we can still feel the prosperity of that distant era and get a glimpse into the religions, political, diplomatic, singing and dancing, farming, hunting, business, travel, and some other life scenes in different periods.

Late in the afternoon, enjoy some relaxing time at the Crescent Moon Spring and the Singing Sand Dune before getting back to your hotel.

The Yardang National Geological Park, about 180 km to the city of Dunhuang, is a wonderful site for nature lovers, especially for the ones who are interested in geological formations. For the traders who traveled along with the Silk Road, Yardang Geopark with hostile nature is the only pass to move forward the west to Turpan. On a tour from Dunhuang to this huge geopark, you will find different landscapes including Yadan landforms and the Gobi desert, as well as some historical relics, such as Yumen Pass, the Great Wall of the Han Dynasty, and Hecang Fortress.

Time to say goodbye to Dunhuang! From here, you can continue to Turpan and explore more about the Silk Road in Xinjiang, or proceed to Xi'an and discover the modern faces of China.

At the appointed time, the guide and driver will pick you up and transfer you to the airport or railway station for your departure for your next destination.