Today I got to ride to a site I have been curious about since my highschool years: the Zhangye Danxia Geological Park. Many years ago, when I was midway through highschool, I was searching for wallpapers for my computer. The Nissan GTR (was very much into this car) had gotten old, and I wanted to change it to a landscape of some sort…

Eventually I found some stripey, colourful mountains, realised that this was called “Zhang Ye”, and in China, and I had wanted to go. When I did a bit more research at the time, I realised that this was in the middle of nowhere in China, and that it would probably be too difficult to go to. Thus, it was placed into the “too hard and eventually forgotten” bucket of dreams. Until…I’d been asking around for an itinerary from the Chinese tour company and saw the name pop up again. What good fortune that it lies on route for my journey to the west.

Today’s route in blue

Today was scheduled to be a long day of riding; 540KMs, and approximately 9-10 hours on the road. So I made a call yesterday to:

• sleep until I wake up naturally (and hopefully catch up on sleep debt)
• ride the expressways
• take it easy, but take fewer breaks, and prioritise distance.

Things were going swimmingly until 7:30AM, when my alarm went off…I had forgotten to turn it off! Thankfully I was able to get back to sleep and clocked a full 8 hours eventually.

When I got on the road, it was 10AM, overcast, and starting to sprinkle. Things got soggy pretty quickly, so I dialled back the speed, turned on my foglights to flash mode, and put on Ken Li’s translation of the Dao De Jing. When I listen to books as I ride, my attention flitters between the road and the content, so I find myself listening to this book on repeat. It is only about 3.5 hours long, so by the second or third time, things are relatively familiar, and they serve more as a prompt to let the mind wander.

Leaving Xining, we travelled along the Tibetan Plateau - which is sometimes known by the very apt name “The Roof of the World”. This is the Grassy-Mountain biome I have referred to in earlier posts. Only this time, the land was covered by a low cloud which covered the mountaintops. In between grassy mountains, I could see snowcapped peaks in the distance. There was a chilly wind, and the temperature varied from 6-11 degrees. I was immensely thankful for the heated grips I had purchased and installed in Xi’an.

Snowcapped peaks peeking between grassy mountains

Here I made my first proper stop for lunch, at a rest stop along the way. Hundreds of other tourists, mostly ferried by bus, were here also, and all seemed to be in a hurry. I assume they only had a set amount of time given to them by their tour guides, before the bus took off. I was relatively efficient too, ordering lunch (beef noodle soup), and making another coffee while I waited for the food. I love how these rest stops have boiling water dispensers.

Rest stop ahead, beneath the low clouds

I pressed on. Soon, the clouds cleared up and the sun emerged. It is surprising how quickly the landscape transforms with the weather; from a foreboding greyish green, to bright green meadows with yellow and pink flowers, fit for fairytales.

The sun emerges on the Tibetan Plateau

Fields of flowers among grassy plains

By mid afternoon, the landscape was changing yet again. The rolling grass-mountains lost their colour, and a yellowy rock started to emerge as I crossed the wide plains from the Tibetan Plateau to the adjacent mountain range. I was conscious of time, so I kept all stops brief.

The landscape transforms yet again

At one point, my GPS started to send me along very strange village roads - until I reached a dead end, with the directions telling me to proceed into a field. Two ladies who were sitting there looked at me with a confused gaze when I asked if there was a route through the field, and if there were nearby points of interest.

No through road

Eventually I made my way to the programmed stop, a “big buddha”. It seemed like one of those sorts of things you would see when riding around in Thailand, but I wasn’t too intrigued by it, so I took a few photos and then continued on.

The big Buddha

By now, it was getting to late afternoon, and I realised that I could get to Zhangye Danxia by 5:30PM if I skipped the second programmed point (some lake?). This meant that:

• I could catch the afternoon light against the mountains
• I wouldn’t need to wait until tomorrow to see them
• I could potentially make use of this time advantage by riding on in the evening, to get an extra day in Dunhuang It was an easy decision to skip the lake.

Near the Zhangye Danxia mountain range

Zhangye Danxia was bustling with people, and everyone was in a hurry. Tour bus after tour bus filled the parking lot. Private cars were lined up, many with tents and canopies there. Crowds of people were walking around, streaming towards the entrance.

Overland travellers camping in the parking lot

The site is set up for scale, with a large number of busses ferrying tourists around 4 main points of interest. You can get on and off these busses at any of the stops, and spend as much time as you need there.

Stop 1, complete with tourist busses and tourists

The afternoon light casts shadows on the mountains

The mountains were quite cool to see in person although not quite as spectacular as you might infer from the photos (I had anticipated this, so I was quite pleased nonetheless). I relied on Chatgpt’s advice on which points of interest to see / skip (I skipped #2 as it suggested, because the walk seemed too long, and I wanted to spend more time at the fourth point).

Pic, courtesy of French tourists (I returned the favour afterwards)

While I was here I bumped into a few young French tourists, who had travelled all the way here by rail! They had been travelling since February, had passed through Moscow, Mongolia, and even travelled to parts of South East Asia. Very impressive to see them travel China, as I wouldn’t expect it to be very straightforward for non-Chinese speakers.

The tourist town

By now it was approaching 8PM. After looking at the crowds, the idea of staying in town didn’t appeal to me, so I did the maths on pressing on and covering tomorrow’s route in the evening:

• It would be about 2.5 hours on the road, travelling about 210km
• I would miss a lake along the way (I am okay missing lakes to be honest, I think I’ve missed like 3-4 by now). I have seen a lot of bodies of water in my lifetime.
• The roads would probably be empty.
• This would give me more time to check out the Great Wall tomorrow, and get to Dunhuang.
• I would be able to ride at night properly for the first time this whole trip
• I would be able to test out the lights I had bought properly Easy decision. I bought a red bull, some red tea, and then hit the road (although not before getting pulled into a fellow traveller’s vlog).

The fellow traveller, prepping his fancy roof tent

I made the distance in record time, getting there in about 90 minutes. It was breathtakingly beautiful travelling west at dusk, and felt like I was chasing the dying light. The roads had quite a bit of commercial traffic (which I had not anticipated), so it was not a very relaxed ride, but was still quite a nice experience.

Zhangye Danxia in the distance at dusk

Dinner at Jiayuguan

I had a great time today.

Tomorrow; Dunhuang!

Some stats

• 661 KMs travelled
• 43L fuel added
• 3 unique interactions
• 50g coffee consumed

Altitude map of today’s ride

Route to date