Tourism: Chinese. +4 must-sees.

In my Top-100 Must-See Places in the World, there’s a special section on China. So why does this single country get a section all of its own (as Russia does) unlike most other countries? Simple: it’s packed full of touristic wonders; it’s only they’re hardly known about outside the country. China is in many ways a self-sufficient country, and that includes in terms of its domestic tourism. China has no real need for foreign tourists: it has plenty to be getting on with from inside the country ).

Anyway, I regularly (but quietly) add new places to the China sub-list of my Top-100 list, based on my travels around the country. So here’s my latest update adding new data and recommendations to the list…

1. The Longyou Caves.

The Longyou Caves – meaning Dragon Caves – were discovered in 1992 when some locals were pumping water from a pond. You can image their surprise when they came across this lot! It turned out to be ancient man-made caverns – ‘secret’ (unrecorded) ones at that; MASSIVE ones at that (they scooped out a whopping MILLION cubic meters of bedrock to make them!). I mean, how do you (rather, you and, say, an army of laborers) keep that undertaking (which clearly lasted decades) quiet so no one at all knows about it/writes about it? All a mystery. And, accordingly – very must-see!

Here’s some detail on the caves; here too (photos are from here).

2. Dunhuang.

This is a city in the Gansu Province of Western China. Red deserts and red rocks. What precisely needs checking out here I haven’t worked out yet, but the photos on the internet look particularly oh-my-Gansu.

Btw, Dunhuang isn’t far from the multicolored mountains of Zhangye (where I was in 2015).

3. Lugu Lake.

This lake is on the border between Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province. The pics look amazing, as does the Google Map of the place; as does the Chinese Internet! But I know nothing of the place – yet.

4. Kanas Lake.

Kanas Lake (喀纳斯), Xinjiang, judging by the colors, is best visited in October – November. Chi-net pix – here.

So there you have it. Four hidden treasures deep in China’s heartland. Yes, I do intend visiting them all soon, to flesh out these brief descriptions and photos. Stay tuned!…