We took the morning bus to Jiayuguan (嘉夷关), going through the Hexi Gully (河西走廊). Hexi Gully is the 1000KM stretch of land in Gansu from east to west on the western shore of the HuangHe (黄河), a.k.a the Yellow River. It consists of the central part of the Silk Road from Lanzhou to Dunhuang. While Dunhuang is named as "the throat of Silk Road", Jiayuguan is named "the throat of Hexi Gully" and Jiayuguan Fort earned the name as "the First and Greatest Pass under Heaven". The fort is the first pass for the Great Wall in the west while Shanhaiguan (山海关) is the first pass in the east.
Today, Jiayuguan is famouse for its Great Wall. It has the one and only Hanging Great Wall in China. I know, you wonder what is a Hanging Great Wall. This stretch of the Great Wall goes on at a 70-90 degree slope, making it the most steep, slenderly Great Wall you will ever climb. The hiking enthusiatics know there are 2 parts of the Great Wall is excellent for hiking, Jiayuguan and Simatai in the east. Jiayuguan is steep and Simatai is raw. Strangely, this section of the Great Wall is built by mud clay snaking over the mountain. From a far distance, it looks like hanging from the sky.
After DunHuang, Jiayuguan is another oasis city in the Gansu province. Up high in the station, the Gobi desert is in view in the north. Of course, the best time to visit should be the evening sunset time. However, we did not plan to stay over in Jiayuguan. As we can see the endless Gobi desert in Dunhuang, the snow cap Qilian mountain ranges bounded Jiayuguan in the south. We only spent half a day here and took the night bus to Lanzhou.
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