February 17, 2025
Goodbye, Dunhuang! Hello, Zhangye! But not so fast…
Farewell, Dunhuang! It was fun and educational, but we were back on the road – sticking to our planned China-2024 trip route. Today, nearly 600 kilometers getting to Zhangye; accordingly we were up early and off we popped…
The road wasn’t the most exciting – made worse by gloomy clouds and drizzle. Still, a couple of things along the way made us stop and click away with our cameras. Like this large sculpture in the middle of the desert:
I’m not sure what the artist had in mind in terms of the meaning of this sculpture, buy somehow to me it was “child-mother”, as in “human-planet”. The inevitable moment when we have to leave our “mother” and move forward on our own…
…Whatever. I was really impressed by it. It just worked for me…
Lucky for us, the weather was meh (and you don’t see me approving meh-weather often!): a cold drizzle was falling from the sky – which kept most tourists away. That meant we got almost clean shots (without the tourists) ->
Here it is on Google Maps, and here ->
Nearby – two more interesting art installations. The first is a monument to Emperor Wu of Han ->
Striking, imposing: Like! ->
The second art-piece? Just a guy running somewhere. I couldn’t find anything on the internet about it. Still cool! ->
Looks like they’re setting up a whole art cluster here in the middle of the desert…
The next stop on today’s 600-kilometer journey: Jiayu Pass (Tower) – the very first (or last, depending on your perspective) fortified section of the Great Wall of China (first/last – as in: at one of the ends of the wall, not in terms of time:). This is its westernmost part:
Here’s where the Great Wall begins/ends – stretching for thousands of kilometers (though with gaps) ->
If you look closely, this part of the wall is made of clay – not stone like near Beijing:
Of course, the wall isn’t eternal – farther along, it’s not so well-preserved, with some sections heavily damaged or completely destroyed. Modern infrastructure also cuts through it in places:
However, if you look at the satellite maps, you’ll often see how they’ve carefully constructed new roads to avoid damaging what’s left of the wall:
Alrighty, let’s step inside the fortress! From the first few steps, you realize almost everything here is a modern reconstruction:
A must-do: climb up the fortress walls and take in the cultural heritage from above:
A few more random pics:
On the horizon, some kind of chemical plant adds to the scenery:
The cannon? Fake. Ancient China never had them! ->
Meanwhile, we keep moving, edging closer to the starting point of our big loop through the rocky-desert landscapes of northern-central China…
Next stop: the Zhangye Danxia multicolored mountains. More of those in the next post…
The rest of the photos from our China-2024 trip are here.
