Qilian Mountains, Qinghai Lake, and Chaka Salt Lake
~Aaron
The Silk Road
Silk Road Day 5:
Zhuoer Mountain, Qinghai Lake, Chaka Salt Lake
Beautiful blue green color of Qinghai Lake after the rain
Zhuoer Mountains
Grass plain beside the mountains
Along our journey of the Silk Road, we passed through the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (青藏高原). The Qilian Mountains (祁连山脉), Qinghai Lake (青海湖), and Chaka Salt Lake (茶卡盐湖) are very wonderful. On the way to these places, we stopped at the Zhuoer Mountain （卓尔山）. This beautiful mountain has beautiful scenery and a lovely view of the surrounding landscape. The Qilian Mountains just snowed when we passed through, so the snow was very deep. The Qinghai Lake is the largest salt-water lake, and even the largest lake in China! It has been called Green Sea or Blue Lake for its clear water. Qinghai Lake is about 3,205 meters or 10515 feet above sea level. The water is 6 percent salt, nearly twice as much as sea water (3.5 percent salt). The Chaka Salt Lake has a lot of salt.
Entrance of the Zhuoer Mountain
4120 meters above sea level, Qilian Mountains
The Qilian Mountains
Qilian Mountains
The Qilian Mountains had very thick snow, even though we visited it in summer! At the peak of a mountain, I went off the normal route by a foot. Do you know how deep my legs sank? The bottom of my thigh was covered in snow! We didn’t stick around much longer, because the altitude was 13, 517 feet (4,120 meters) above sea level. My mom’s head started to throb, causing us to have to go away.
Stepped into the deep snow up to my thigh
Naked carp breeding grounds
Tibetan yak (藏牦牛) far away
Stone statue, half river - half fish
半河清水半河鱼
Entrance to the Qinghai Lake
Naked carp fish of Qinghai Lake
Naked carp fish of Qinghai Lake
At the Qinghai Lake, the saltiness does not bother the naked carp fish (湟鱼)that find their perfect home. We viewed a lot of struggling fish trying to swim up round “stairs” to get to a lake. These amazing fish are exactly like salmon, except they are black, much smaller, and don’t go as far to reach breeding grounds. They are one of the few organisms living in the Qinghai Lake. A stone rising up in the water reads half the river is water, the other half is fish (in Chinese). A sign says that fishing is prohibited for ten years until 2026 to protect Qinghai Lake's ecosystem.
Chaka Salt Lake, the "mirror” of the sky
Tourist train running at Chaka Salt Lake
Salt
Chaka Salt Lake is an excellent place for viewing reflections. It is always described as the mirror of the sky. The pieces of salt across the lake are so huge that 4 are the size of my brother’s hand! They have a salt sculpture of Genghis Khan. Can you see our reflections in the pictures? When we finished taking pictures, we sat by the shore, trying the take off all the salt that formed on our legs.
Acting like a mirror lake
Salt sculpture of Genghis Khan
Qilian Mountains, Qinghai Lake, and Chaka Salt Lake were all very fun. The Qilian Mountains had lots of snow to play in. Qinghai Lake is well-known for its size and fish. The Chaka Salt Lake can make a perfect reflection of the entire landscape, if undisturbed. All these places are very awesome.
Zhangye night market,
Silk Road Day 4:
Rainbow Hills, Great Buddha Temple in Zhangye, Horseshoe Temple
The beautiful Rainbow Hills sunrise
After Jiayuguan, we continued our journey by train. Zhangye is our next stop. Zhangye is an important city in the Silk Road. It was the capital of Western Xia (西夏). Western Xia roamed the area from 1038 to 1227. There is a legend that the Mongol Empire Kublai Khan (忽必烈) was born in the Great Buddha Temple (张掖大佛寺). The Great Buddha Temple contains the longest reclining Clay Buddha in China. It was already evening time when we arrived. We visited the Zhangye night market, had lots of yummy food, took enough sleep, got ready for our next big day.
The stone statue of the Rainbow Hills
Entrance
The colorful hills
covered by
beautiful morning
sunlight
The Rainbow Hills (七彩丹霞), Zhangye Danxia National Geological Park, is famous for its colorful rock formation. The Rainbow Hills is a good spot to see sunrise, while Dun Huang Echoing Sand Mountain is a good spot to see the sunset. Many people usually stay in the nearby village for the night. That's not what we did. We first woke up at 5:00 a.m. and our rented taxi driver drove us to the Rainbow Hills. It was only half an hour away from the city center of Zhangye. We wanted to see the sunrise while hiking, but we did not have enough time. The sun already pulled its face out from the far away hills at the park entrance. The sunrise was heartbreaking beautiful.
The Rainbow Hills
The Rainbow Hills
The Rainbow Hills
众僧拜佛
灵猴观火海
The Rainbow Hills is also pretty after the rain or the sunset. The washing rain makes the colors become brighter. There was a scenery that was created by water erosion. There was a group of reddish yellow lumps and a lump that looked like head and a multicolored shirt. The reddish yellow lumps look like monks. The shirt and the head belong to a sleeping Buddha. The monks are worshiping the Buddha (众僧拜佛). There is also a point were you could imagine a monkey looking at the flaming sea (灵猴观火海). The monkey is a lump of dirt that has a shape like a monkey. The sea is the red bottom which represents the sea of flame. The Rainbow Hills contains the prettiest land I have ever seen.
The colorful Rainbow Hills
The colorful Rainbow Hills
Entrance to the Great Buddha Temple
The Great Buddha Temple
The Great Buddha Temple
The Buddhist art
The entrance door
The Great Buddha Temple is full of history. Even the entrance doors are ancient. The doors have their traditional Buddhist art. There was a hall that contained their largest indoor clay sculptured sleeping Buddha with a wooden core. The width is 11 rooms wide, depth was 9 rooms, and the height of 20.2 meters. Many treasures were token from the head of Buddha and displayed in the temple. People place the treasures in the Buddha's head because they believe that is where the gift of wisdom from.
The Great Buddha and the guardian
The Horseshoe Temple
Entrance
Horseshoe Temple
Horseshoe Temple
The Horseshoe Temple (马蹄寺) is 3.5 hours away from the temple. There were many grottoes to see. We went to them all. The waiting line for Tavitimsa Grottoes (三十三天窟) was about an hour long. While my parents took turns waiting in line, we went to see the rest of the grottoes. The gold covered Buddha statue was beautiful. Many things were already broken. This temple is definitely not a well preserved place like Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. But the fun part is that we can climbed all the way to the top of Tavitimsa Grottoes. It is 7 floor high. When the big line finally ended, we went in and immediately started climbing the narrow and the high stairs. You could have a very good view of the bottom, though. I think that energy was worth it.
Narrow and high grottoes
Climbed high up
to the grottoes
Thousand Buddha Cave 千佛洞
The Rainbow Hills is very good and all the others. I had an awesome day!
