THE CAVE OF A 8 JIAYUGUAN FORTRESS 1 THE TURPAN BASIN Before us stands one of China’s best-known 20 JIUQUAN SPACE CENTER THOUSAND BUDDHAS fortresses, a stout brick castle that guarded This enormous hole, almost twice the size 4 the “First and Greatest Pass Under Heaven.” 16 JIUQUAN, THE We’re now in Jiuquan. It’s an 31 of Massachusetts, is 508 ft. (155 m) Welcome to the art gallery of interesting place, but not that 27 DESERT FOREST OF INNER MONGOLIA the desert! The 492 caves near spring OF WINE interesting. So why all the below sea level. It’s the fourth-lowest as looped off to . Dunhuang contain over 2,000 Chinese tourists? They’re on T River h ont the le re place on Earth that’s not underwater We’ve taken the bus a few EUPHRATES POPLARS he Yellow l as it c inues e ft, and we’ sculptures and 484,000 their way to the Jiuquan f he wal astwar e These Euphrates poplar ollowing t er with Inner Mo d along th sq. ft. (45,000 sq m) miles east to Jiuquan, the Space Center! bord ngolia. trees in Ejina are tough of wall paintings. Spring of Wine! enough to create a forest in the desert. 3 FINE VINES Time to stop for a healthy snack: the city of Turpan 12 WEI-JIN BRICK TOMBS on the western edge of the 6 Th ese painted tombs are really 17 SHANDAN HOR Turpan Basin produces the an art galle SE RA 21 ry – in fact, the biggest e’ve taken a br NCH KHARA KHOTO best raisins in the world. TAOLAI RIVER undergrou W eak in Sha nd art gallery in the world. Silk Road t ndan Another trip away from the wall, Before the Great old own, in ord , an er to this time by jeep to the ruined Wall was built, the the famous horse ra visit 9 nch nea city of Khara Khoto. 28 BADAIN JARAN DESERT gorge cut by the rby. 2 FLAMING MOUNTAINS Taolai River marked First Beacon platform What’s that creepy noise in the middle of It’s so hot in this desert that the the western border Hey, look! Our first sight of the Great Wall! It’s part 22 RECUMBENT BUDDH nowhere? It’s the singing sand dunes of the mountains seem to have caught fire! of the Chinese of the Ming wall, built in 1539 under the command A OF ZHANGYE Badain Jaran Desert! Actually, the “flames” are an optical illusion empire. of General Li Han. caused by the heat. 15 G NS The gigantic 30 THE HUANGTU LACIERS IN THE QILIAN MOUNTAI wooden 5 statue in 25 YELLOW-EARTH PLATEAU JADE GATE The gleaming peaks and glaciers Zhangye’s TOMBS OF THE TANGUT kings for of the Qilian Mountains are so This enormous area of around 247 Through these ancient gates on the Silk Road Giant Buddha Beneath these giant beehives (75.4 square miles (640,000 sq km) of passed all caravans heading west with jade beautiful that the ancient Xiongnu Temple is the largest recumbent ft. / 23 m tall), the bodies of the people of this region believed blonde-brown soil is the same color as the markets of India, Persia, Turkey, and Europe. 10 ARCHAN SAN (lying down) Buddha in all China. rulers of the long-lost Tangut the Yellow River that runs through it. B D DUNES they were sacred. Empire were laid to rest. Like the ocean, the face of the desert is always moving, as waves of sand are formed and reformed by the restless wind. 13 WINE FOR THE WORLD 18 ZHANGYE DANXIA The Chinese certainly know how to make wine – NATIONAL PARK they’ve been doing it for over 4,600 years! 26 Stop the bus! This is something we must see MUSLIMS IN NINGXIA 14 – a thousand rainbows made of rock. Along the Silk Road from the west THE TERRA-COTTA At Yinchuan we leave the Great came goods, culture, diseases – WARRIORS OF XI'AN and religion. And this is how Wall for a while 19 and go southeast THE CITY OF XI'AN it was, about 1,400 to see the We’ve come quite far from the years ago, that Islam WING THE wall to visit the Eternal City arrived in China. FOLLO extraordinary 23 Army of Terra- of Xi’an (or Chang’an), FL once one of the YI Cotta Warriors. T NG CHINA largest cities in b his H OF e O LL b A s r R W t AT the world. - on SE RE is k z G n e O a ow st F sy n i atu WU mb mag e, o WE ol o es ne o I f al in th f the Come on a journey of mystery and l Ch e wo inese rld, 7 DESERT PLANTS art. majesty! We’ll explore the longest 11 Plants as well as people have to be tough to GOB structure ever made by man, from I DESERT 29 SHEEPSKIN RAFTS survive in the Gobi Desert. This saxaul tree is We’ve go t plenty of w 24 YELLOW RIVER Sheep provide us with wool and meat one of the toughest. Our tra ater with us – just in case! the dusty desert of Gansu province to in is traveling – and, in Ningxia, inflatable rafts! for hundreds of miles along As we follow the Great Wall out of Gansu province and into Ningxia, the edge . the rolling waves of the Yellow Sea. of the Gobi Desert. we meet the “Cradle of Chinese Civilization,” the mighty Yellow River 625. TOMBS OF THE 627. DESERT FOREST OF 629. SHEEPSKIN RAFTS 631. INNER MONGOLIA 634. GIANT PANDA 636. WESTERN QING 638. HUKOU WATERFALL 640. DATONG AND 42.6 ZHOUKOUDIAN 644. CHINESE JUMPING 46.6 THE SHANHAI PASS 48.6 THE YOUNG LADY’S TANGUT kings EUPHRATES POPLARS Whoever first came up with the idea was Much of Inner Mongolia is a plateau, like Just about everyone in China loves the giant TOMBS China is big in just about every way – YUNGANG BUDDHIST CAVES MOUSE Ming commanders certainly knew what GATE Crushed first by the Mongols and then by The poplar forests in Ejina deserve our a genius: to make a sheepskin raft, all you the flat top of a mountain about 3,780 ft. panda. Actually, pretty much the whole The Qing dynasty (1644-1912) – also except waterfalls. Strangely for such a STATUES In the early 1920s, Swede Johan Gunnar The Chinese jumping mouse is a strange they were doing when they built a massive The Niangziguan fort in Shanxi is part of need are some sheepskins, a few pieces of (1,000 m) high. Genghis Khan, the fierce world feels the same about these cuddly large country with so many rivers, the fortress in the Shanhai Pass, blocking the the Ming, the Tangut Empire is shrouded respect and admiration. We really shouldn’t known as the Manchu – were the last of Buddhism came to China from India during Andersson found two strange teeth in little creature. It lives largely by itself the Ming wall, built about 1542, and is in mystery. But as this 19.3-square-mile expect trees to survive in this desert wood for a frame, and lots of puff. Mongol leader , is said to be buried here, looking creatures. A word of warning, China’s imperial rulers. For mysterious 65.5 ft. (30 m) descent of the Yellow the Zhoukoudian caves 31 miles (50 km) high up in the mountains, feeding off grass road to Beijing from the north. The “First associated with Princess Pingyang, one of and there are plenty of charming historical however: the black-and-white cuties may River at Hukou is its second highest. And, the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). Pass under Heaven” had been fought over (50 sq km) burial ground suggests, it must region. But the super-hardy Euphrates Shave the sheepskins and soften them reasons, the Qing emperors chose to be Scholars are not sure whether the religion southwest of Beijing. More finds followed, and other juicy greenery. While its body the legendary heroes of Chinese history. have been a spectacular civilization. For poplar , known here as the Huyang poplar with rapeseed oil. Sew the edges of each sites to visit, as well as fascinating wildlife. look sweet and innocent, but if you get buried in alternate places. One emperor to be honest, it’s more like rapids than a including bits of fossilized jaw and skull. is no more than 3.9 in. (10 cm) long, its for centuries, and went on being a place of on the wrong side of them, they can be true waterfall. arrived by sea or overland along the Silk conflict into World War II. We are back in AD 618. The Sui dynasty, reasons unknown, the tombs are lined up or “desert hero,” somehow manages. Its skin tightly together . Don’t forget to leave Unfortunately for the environment, the was buried in the Eastern Tombs, the next Road. An ancient legend gives the story They were of Homo erectus, a previously tail, used for balancing, can add another headed by the vile Emperor Yang, is on its with the sun, moon, and stars. survival technique is nothing new, either: a small hole. Blow into the hole to inflate plateau is a rich source of coal, oil, gas, and just as dangerous as any other 220 lb. in the Western Tombs, the next in the But what the falls lack in size, they make unknown species of very early human.