Another Hidden "Tibetan Land"
Gannan, located in southern Gansu Province, is renowned as "Small Tibet" because of its influential Tibetan Buddhism existence. It has not only authentic Buddhist culture, but also vast and beautiful plateau views. The largest Tibetan Study Academy Labrang Monastery is located in Xiahe County of Gannan. While another famous religious site Langmusi is an incredible place where you will experience spectacular religious atmosphere and enjoy fascinating land of natural landscape.
Highlights of this tour
Welcome to Lanzhou - a city of Yellow River. Your tour guide will pick you up at the airport/train station in Lanzhou, and then escort you to your hotel in a private vehicle. The rest of today is for you to explore this northwestern historical city on your own.
Free Time Idea: Zhengning Road Night Market is a famous food street in downtown Lanzhou, where you can taste Beef Noodle, mutton and bread soup, lamb kebab and other different kinds of local cuisine and snacks.
How to Get to Lanzhou? Lanzhou is located in the center of northwestern China. You can get to Lanzhou by flight from Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur abroad, or from China’s domestic cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xian, Datong, Kunming, etc. Besides, you can take high speed bullet train to Lanzhou from Xining (2-2.5 hrs), Xian (3-3.5 hrs), Beijing (7.5 hrs), Taiyuan (7 hrs), Zhengzhou (5.5-5 hrs), Urumqi, Shangha, etc.
After breakfast, you will drive about 400km(5.5 hrs) to Langmusi Town. En route, you will pass by Linxia which is renowned as "small Mecca" because of its Muslim culture. Then you will reach Gahai Lake - a plateau lake with an altitude of 3479.7 meters. It is the habitat and breeding place for a great number of rare migrant birds.
Leave Gahai Lake and keep driving to Langmusi Town. Nicknamed as "Little Oriental Switzerland", Langmusi is surrounded by grassland, forests and hills. Han, Tibetan, and Hui people live here in harmony and most residents here believe in Tibetan Buddhism and Islam. Stepping into Langmusi, you can feel a strong atmosphere of religion seeing the colorful temples and prayer flags, which also adds a sense of Zen to the primitive nature scene. Staying here, people can easily calm down and find a little peace of mind.
Stay overnight in Langmusi Town.
If you like, you can get up early to watch the beautiful sunrise. The town and temples look stunning and peaceful in the morning fogs.
After breakfast, start the exploration of Langmusi area. Langmusi is a very small town on the junction of Gansu and Sichuan Province - a half in Gansu and a half in Sichuan. Each part has a Tibetan monastery. There is also an Islamic mosque located between these two Tibetan monasteries. Our knowledgeable guide will take you to visit them one by one. If lucky enough, you may witness the numerous local festivals in monasteries(especially during the Spring Festival and the summer months). The landscape here is fascinating - red mountain, beautiful valley, blue sky, forests, flowers, temples... It is also a great place to experience local nomadic life.
After breakfast, keep traveling northward to Xiahe of Gansu Province from Langmusi and make a midway visit to Sangke Grassland which is a natural pasture of Tibetan nomads. The grass is lush like a blanket in summer and the cattle and sheep are herding in groups under the blue sky and white clouds. What a pastoral scenery. Every year on July 13th of the lunar calendar, the seven tribes of Sangke region will gather at Sangke Grassland and hold a horse racing festival here.
After about 3 hours' driving, you will get to Labrang Monastery. Spend the rest of today visiting this most famous Esoteric Tibetan Buddhism in the world which is also one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug (Yellow Hat) school of Tibetan Buddhism, the most influential outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It is also famous for having the most complete Tibetan Buddhism teaching system in China. The monastery is large in scale and magnificent in architecture style, enshrining a lot of huge Buddha statues and various exquisite sculptures, murals, and magical instruments. Its pilgrimage corridor has over 2000 prayer wheels, as the longest of its kind in the world. In the southwest corner of Labrang Monastery, there is an ancient wooden bridge. Walking crosses the bridge and walking up to the hill, you can enjoy a panoramic view of Labrang Monastery and surrounding.
Accommodate at Xiahe County.
Today you will drive back to Lanzhou. On route, take a side trip to visit the Bingling Temple, a Buddhist cave with a long history of over 1,600 years. First, you will drive about 1.5 hours to Liujiaxia Dam, a big national hydroelectric reservoir on the upper Yellow River. From the dock, you need to take a speed boat to get to Bingling Temple. During the 40-50 minutes’ boat ride, you can see a different section of Yellow River, very limpid and clear unlike the muddy sights seen in Lanzhou, and layered, red-colored huge Danxia landforms along the riverside, without coverage of any plantations.
After getting off from the boat, walk several minutes to the entrance of Bingling Temple. The temple is actually a site of Buddhist grottoes filled with ancient Buddhist frescoes and sculptures caved into the rocks, along a long narrow valley of Yellow River. Dating back to West Qin Kingdom, the cave preserves about 183 caves, 694 stone statues, 82 clay sculptures and more than 900 square meters murals. You will tour the most spectacular Lower Temple Area, seeing the 27-meter giant sitting Buddha, many colored Bodhisattvas in different gestures and remaining murals from Wei, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Though some figures have been damaged by earthquakes, erosion, these relics are unquestionably outstanding Buddhist artworks revealing previous Buddhism prosperity and remarkable architecture and carving art of ancient China.
Lastly, leave Bingling Temple and drive about 2.5 hours back to Lanzhou.
Today you will explore the best highlights of Lanzhou city. First stop is the White Pagoda Mountain. You can hike up the staircases to the top of the mountain, which is a awesome experience. If you don't want to bear the walk, you can take the cable car (Y35 to go up, Y20 to come down). On the top of the hill is the White Pagoda built in Yuan Dynasty with Lamasery style.
Then you will explore the most popular itinerary along the Yellow River. Firstly, you will visit the First Bridge on Yellow River which has more than one hundred year history. The following attraction is the grand Yellow River Mother Statues which stand the beauty of oriental women. Lastly, enjoy an interesting time in the Yellow River Ancient Waterwheels Park.
Check out from your hotel and leave airport or train station for next destination.
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Lanzhou - Xiahe - Linxia - Lanzhou
Tianshui - Lanzhou - Zhangye
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“Very good experience”
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