Silk Road - Gansu Lanzhou, it is really Yellow?

When I got to Lanzhou (兰州), I was exhausted after 2 weeks of travelling.  Thus, I took 2 days off just to sleep and eat here.  First thing I learnt in Lanzhou, the people here talk very loud, but definitely brainy. A hotel manager help me to unscrewed my pedlock with 2 screw drivers. A taxi driver got me the best deal in town to stay with a humbly tip. A bus driver kindness protected us from the conning act of boatman.

Lanzhou, if you hear people saying, always the Ramen.  The Lanzhou Beef Ramen is the most famous ramen in Chinese culture.  I went on the street and tested it, it is indeed the best ramen I ever had!  If you ask anyone on the street which is the best store, they will say All Are Good.  It is indeed!

Most tourists came to Lanzhou to see the HuangTu Plateau (黄土高原). Over the history, this area had and will be flooded in which the HuangTu (a.k.a Yellow Soil) deposited over thousand of years is what formed the plateau.  You can see from the plateau the mark of level of the flooding over certain years. The flood certainly can reach a very high level.  But the soil deposited does not seem to be fertiled.  The cultivation here is mainly corn and the farmers are mostly poor.  Thus, they will work as the boatman during the tourist season.  Surprisingly, the culture is completely different along this river and plateau, the people here are mostly muslim. This could be due to the close vicinity to the NingXia province which once upon the time was one of the 5 largest dynasty in China.  West Xia (西夏) dynasty was predominatly muslim.

By taking the boat up the Yellow River, it is actually not Yellow, we reach a grotto called Bing Ling Si (冰灵寺) in the canyon built a little bit latter than Mogao Grottoes in AD420. It is not one of the 3 greatest grottoes in China (Mogao Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes and Maijishan Grottoes), but Bing Ling Grottoes has something very unique to it.  On top of it was flooded by the Yellow River, it is a fully expose grottoes making it vulnerable for erosion. Due to that reason, it is in the open and preservation is almost impossible.  As time past, this grottoes will disappear.

>27M in height, this Maitreya Buddha is similar in style to the great Buddhas that once lined the cliffs of Bamiyan, Afghanistan

Take in the view around, a sail along the Yellow River is a must. We might not feel the force of its flood, but we can see the mark the flood left behind.  In which, the impact seem tremendous.