A G: Silk Road - Zhangye 张掖 by Gordon (Rainbow Hills 七彩丹霞, Great Buddha Temple 张掖大佛寺, and Horseshoe Temple 马蹄寺石窟群 )

Zhangye

- Gordon

The Silk Road

Silk Road Day 3:

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

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

Entrance to 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

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.