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Posted On Saturday, April 5, 2014 at
at
2:24 AM
by Alvin
Leaving the Kong Dong Mountains (甘肅平涼崆峒山) behind and we entered the Hui Province of Ning Xia (寧夏回族自治區) from the south. We passed the cities of Gu Yuan (固原) and Wu Zhong (吳忠) which were strategic military outposts set up in the days of Genghis Khan when Da Man called the shots around most of Asia and Europe. Gu Yuan had the natural barriers of the Liu Pan Mountains (六盘山) to guard against the Tibetan Highlanders and Wu Zhong sat right at the critical point where the Yellow River presented the ancient Turkish tribes with a formidable river crossing before they could march on towards the ancient capital of Xian. Both cities impressed us with an in-land, frontier wilderness feel and at the same time a certain modern, fast-paced sync-up with the rest of the Chinese developed coastal cities. Watch out - Ning Xia was catching up big time and making up for lost years ! We also took maximum advantage of journeying across this mainly-Muslim populated province as we repeatedly ordered one of our favourite dishes - freshly boiled mutton prepared to order (手抓羊肉) - Yummy !
Gu Yuan was slightly more than a one-horse town as we walked the length of the main road that cut through the city and it took us about an hour and a half. But the city had every modern amenity you could think of. On the eastern end of the city, we climbed the low-key, laid-back mountain range of 東嶽山 which was dotted with interesting Tao and Buddhist temples. After about an hour's climb, we reached its summit and we had a perfect sunset waiting for us and the city beneath us looked to be thriving and well-planned. Wu Zhong on the other hand was gearing up to be an up-and-coming tourist mega-hit as newly built tourist sites mushroomed all over the city - Islamic Cultural Centre (伊斯蘭文化中心), Huang He Tower (黃河樓) to name but a few. Both of these sites were visually stunning and they looked and felt newly un-wrapped, perhaps a few weeks before we arrived !
