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The Glossary

Mudiao - "Traditional Chinese wood-carving and sculpture."

From China Glossary

For tourists who dislike the outdoors, Gansu is not the place to be. Here, travelers brace themselves for an encounter with a culturally and an ethnically diverse province of "singing" sand dunes and bitingly-nippy plateaus filled with UNESCO World Heritage Sites and some of the largest and most important Tibetan monasteries outside Tibet.

An old, rickety bus from Lanzhou is the tourist's passport to adventure in Gansu, whose western frontier extends from the crisp grasslands of Mongolia to the hostile deserts of Xinjiang. The activities range from camel riding to lunch with the monks. As the traveler delves deeper into the province, the topography becomes more complex, and the climate more unpredictable. Nevertheless, such unpredictability makes Gansu even all the more attractive for adventurers with a sweet tooth for the wild.

As early as the Han and Tang dynasties, this region was a center for East-West cultural exchanges, making many people seek it out to trace the roots of civilization such as the Jade Gate Pass and Sun Pass, remains of the last Han watchtowers on the Great Wall of China; Loumen's Water Curtain Thousand Buddha Caves; and the 194 historically-rich murals of Majiishan grottoes or "Gallery of Oriental Sculpture" in Tianshui. The other places of interest are Wuwei's galloping horse statue, Xiahe's Labrang Temple, and Zhangeye's Great Buddha Temple.

More Silk Road artifacts are housed in Gansu Provincial Museum in Lanzhou, Gansu's capital, which is famous for its mountaineering tracks such as Five-Spring Mountain, the cool Lanshan Mountain, and White Pagoda Mountain, which has the White Pagoda Temple that overlooks the Yellow River. Lanzhou's noodles happen to be one of the most favorite foods in China.

The Great Wall of China's former garrison headquarters is Zhangye while its western end fort is Jiayuguan, nicknamed the "Last Fort Under Heaven." For those who cannot make it to Tibet, Xiahe is Gansu's "Little Tibet." For yak wool coat or for a taste of anything yak (meat, butter, butter tea and yoghurt), Linxia's colorful market town is a must-see.

A camel or a horse ride further south leads to Dunhung, whose 4th-century Mogao Caves or "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas" is a World Heritage Site for its exquisite Buddhist art and manuscripts. The town is also frequented by visitors for its Cresent Lake that turns into a winter sledging rink in the middle of Echoing-Sound Mountain, whose sands "sing" at the gush of the wind.

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