Exploring China's Silk Road in Gansu Province with Lee Moore

Gansu Province: A Silk Road Gateway

• 🗺️ Gansu Province is a crucial connecting region between Central China and its western territories, historically defined by the Silk Road.
• 🚶 Lee Moore and his travel partner, photographer Gaven Burke, attempted to hitchhike the Silk Road through Gansu, encountering both successes and humorous failures.
• 🗣️ Lee's proficiency in Chinese proved to be a double-edged sword, sometimes leading to higher prices from drivers, contrary to typical hitchhiking experiences.

Maijishan Grottoes and Fuxi Temple

• 🏞️ The Maijishan Grottoes near Tianshui feature over a hundred Buddhist statuaries carved into a cliff face, dating back to around 400 AD.
• ⚠️ The walkways providing access to the grottoes can be intimidating for those with a fear of heights.
• 🏛️ In Tianshui, the Fuxi Temple honors a mythological figure credited with inventing Chinese writing and the trigrams of the I Ching, highlighting concepts of Chinese nationalism and ethnicity.

Tibetan Culture and Maya Snow Mountain

• 🏔️ Near Lanzhou, the town of Zhangxian offers access to Maya Snow Mountain, a granite peak with alpine scenery and two sacred lakes for the Tibetan people.
• 🚶 The hike up Maya Snow Mountain involves steep stone steps and offers stunning views, with the higher elevations populated by Tibetan herders.
• 🏕️ While technically in a Tibetan autonomous county, the area's openness to foreigners can be uncertain, though Lee and Gaven had no issues and even camped with locals.

Qinghai Lake and Dunhuang's Mogao Caves

• 🏞️ A detour into neighboring Qinghai Province leads to Qinghai Lake, China's largest lake, offering vast, open landscapes and opportunities for cultural exchange with Tibetan nomads.
• 🥶 Despite being late June, the weather at Qinghai Lake was unseasonably cold, dropping below freezing at night.
• 🎨 Dunhuang is highlighted for the Mogao Caves, an impressive collection of Buddhist cave art dating up to 1000 AD, rediscovered in the 19th century.
• 💰 Access to the Mogao Caves is restricted and expensive due to preservation efforts, but reproductions in the free museum offer a detailed look at the artwork.

Silk Road's Enduring Legacy

• 🧱 Jiuquan is mentioned for its rebuilt Great Wall section and fortress, though the author suggests it might be skippable compared to other sites.
• 🐎 The White Horse Pagoda in Dunhuang is noted as an authentic historical site, unlike some other rebuilt attractions.
• 🌍 Gansu offers a unique experience of transitioning between Tibetan and Han Chinese worlds, embodying the deep history of the Silk Road.
• 🐪 While Gansu itself may not feel like a bustling caravan route today, the western province of Xinjiang, particularly cities like Kashgar, retains a strong sense of historical Silk Road thoroughfares.