Matters needing attention in traveling to Dunhuang

Matters needing attention in Dunhuang tourism-

At the end of April this year, I spent eight days traveling around Dunhuang, Jiayuguan and Lanzhou, and wrote this westward journey strategy for future generations.

Before I set out, I learned in detail about several places I have been to online, including scenic spots, traffic conditions, accommodation and so on. As this is my first time to visit these places, and I am traveling alone, it is necessary to know more about the local situation in order to make more feasible travel plans. Through the internet, I learned that Dunhuang, Jiayuguan and Lanzhou are all relatively mature tourist cities, and the time to go is not the tourist season. However, in order to be prepared, I booked several hotels before leaving, and fully understood the scenic spots to be visited and the prices of tickets and car rentals. I want to buy a ticket from Lanzhou to Beijing in Beijing. Unfortunately, lanzhou railway administration's ticketing software has been fully upgraded, and I didn't buy a return ticket until the day I left Beijing. With a little decoration, I set foot on the westbound train. As it turns out, I didn't get a return ticket, which really brought some trouble to my trip to the west.

April 26, sunny

At 8: 20 pm, the air-conditioned express train No.69 slowly pulled out of Beijing West Railway Station, and I embarked on a journey to the west. T69 train is a new air-conditioned express train from Beijing to Urumqi, with new facilities, good conditions, clean toilets and sufficient washing water all the way. Of course, there are also some unsatisfactory places. The box lunch on the train tastes bad, and the price is 10 yuan/box, which should be said to be more expensive, while Master Kong's instant noodles (barrels) are actually one barrel in 6 yuan. So I suggest you take this train or bring more food by yourself. The fare is 545 yuan for the lower berth (Beijing-Dunhuang).

Today's consumption: 1 166 yuan.

At 9: 50 am on the third day (April 28), the weather was fine and there was a slight wind.

The train arrived in dunhuang railway station on time, which is said to be dunhuang railway station. In fact, it is still a full 130 km away from Dunhuang City. When I got off the bus and left the station, there were many taxis waiting for passengers outside the station, mostly Santana and Jetta. According to what I learned before I left, renting a car from dunhuang railway station to downtown is usually 30 yuan/person, and you can rent a car when there are enough four people. Because there are three people, we ordered a Santana 2000 and negotiated with the driver to determine the price as 100 yuan. There is also a bus at the station, and the fare is 15 yuan/person. However, according to taxi drivers, people who go to Dunhuang rarely do this. Moreover, in order to attract more people, CMB stopped when someone waved on the road, and the meeting was very slow, and it took about three hours to get to Dunhuang. We can take a taxi to Dunhuang as long as 1.5. Before leaving, I booked a triple room at Tian Fei Hotel in Dunhuang (120 yuan). Tian Fei Hotel is a two-star hotel. I chose it because it is opposite the long-distance station. Because I'm going to Jiayuguan by coach, it's more convenient to live in Tian Fei and the price is acceptable. However, after check-in, I found that the hotel conditions were average, and the 24-hour hot water promised on the phone had become 6:00- 12:00 every night. After staying in the hotel, I went out to eat. Dunhuang's special diet is no different from other northwest cities, that is, mutton in various ways. Local snacks include yellow noodles of donkey meat (unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to taste it) and iced apricot skin water (boiled with local specialty Li Guangxing). Apricot peel water is sold all over the street, with a small cup of 50 cents and a large cup of/kloc-0 yuan (about half a bottle of coke), but the taste is not as good as mine.

Because the introduction said that the best time to go to the Mogao Grottoes is in the morning (because all the caves in the Mogao Grottoes face east, there will be sunlight shining into the caves in the morning to increase the brightness), so I decided to go to Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Spring first on the afternoon of the 28th. The streets are full of taxis waiting for passengers, but in Yu's works, there are no foreign backpackers shouting "Mogao". Negotiate the price with the taxi driver, and go to Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Spring to and from 30 yuan. Mingsha Mountain, located 7 kilometers south of Dunhuang, is a natural beauty. After reading it, I think it's definitely worth it. It was two o'clock in the afternoon when I arrived. The weather is fine and windy, but not too big. After entering the scenic spot, a battery car takes you to Crescent Spring, but I think it is more interesting to visit the desert occasionally. Another option is to ride a camel to Crescent Spring, 50 yuan. After years of wind erosion, the sand in Mingsha Mountain has become extremely delicate, and taking off your shoes is soft, warm and comfortable. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from Mingsha Mountain to Crescent Spring. From a distance, you can see a pool of blue water lying quietly under the high and golden sand mountain. It feels wonderful. It's really hard to believe that there is such a pool of clear water in this endless desert. Look carefully to understand. The wind in other places blows the sand to the foot of the mountain. The wind in Mingsha Mountain always blows all the sand falling from the mountain back to the top of the mountain, so that the sand will not fall into the crescent spring and be buried. This is probably the reason why Crescent Moon Spring can coexist with the desert. Although the weather in April is not too hot, I can't stay in the desert with direct sunlight for a long time and return to the city at five o'clock in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I didn't see the beautiful scenery of Mingsha Mountain at sunset. When I return to the city, I will buy a ticket to Jiayuguan the next day at the bus station. There are many shuttle buses from Dunhuang to Jiayuguan at 7: 00 in the morning, but it is best to take the Tian Fei Express, which is a new air-conditioned bus. Although the ticket is almost twice as expensive as the ordinary bus (the ordinary bus is around 35 yuan, and the Tian Fei Express 66 yuan), it is more comfortable to take the Tian Fei Express because the road conditions to Jiayuguan are not very good, and it only stops in Anxi County. Tian Fei Express runs twice a day (8: 30 a.m. and 2: 30 p.m.). There are many buyers, so you should buy tickets in advance.

Note: 1. You must bring more drinking water to Mingsha Mountain, because it is very expensive to buy water locally. Ordinary mineral water should be sold to 6 yuan/bottle, 50 cents in downtown apricot skin water and 2 yuan money in Mingsha Mountain.

2. When renting a car, you must bargain with the driver.

If you go to Dunhuang in hot season, go to Mingsha Mountain after sunset, otherwise the sand is too hot to walk.

Today's consumption: 550 yuan

On April 29, it turned sunny to cloudy, and in the afternoon, it began to be dusty, with strong winds of 5 or 6.

I took a taxi to the Mogao Grottoes the day before, and the fare went back and forth to 70 yuan. Mogao grottoes is located 25 kilometers southeast of Dunhuang city, which can be reached in 30 minutes by car. In order to see the Mogao Grottoes as much as possible, I set off from the hotel at 8: 00 a.m. When I arrived at the Mogao Grottoes, the staff there had just started working. 80 yuan, the ticket to the Mogao Grottoes, arrived early, and there were few tourists, so you can take photos as much as you like, without worrying about taking photos with others. Take care of your bags (cameras are not allowed in the Mogao Grottoes, so you can take care of one bag for 2 yuan), rent a flashlight (3 yuan), wait for 20 people at the entrance, and assign a beautiful girl to be our tour guide. The guide took us into the cave. Although it is already morning, the cave is still dark. We need the dim light of a flashlight to see the dazzling murals painted on the cave walls and the statues sitting on the high platform staring at the distance. Personally, I feel that the murals and sculptures in the prosperous Tang Dynasty are the best, which can reflect the magnificent era that people yearn for. The guide showed us around the 10 cave, which took about 2 hours. Because I had to catch the bus at 2: 30 in the afternoon, I didn't dare to stay any longer, so I went out of the Mogao Grottoes and went straight back to the city to check out for dinner.

Note: 1, Mogao Grottoes must go in the morning. First, there are few people and it is easy to visit. Second, there is some light in the cave, but the flashlight is not enough.

2. Each tour guide only shows you caves around 10. If you want to see more caves, you can follow other teams and go to caves you haven't seen when you have enough time.

3. When buying souvenirs in Mogao Grottoes, you must go to the stalls more often. I bought a rebounding pipa statue, and the quotations of the three booths are quite different.

4. The tour guides take ordinary caves, and the fine caves are very expensive (the most expensive 200 yuan/cave), but you can see the replicas of these fine caves in the art museum opposite the Mogao Grottoes, which is worth visiting.

At 2: 30 pm, the Tian Fei Express started on time, and everyone gave out a small bottle of mineral water and a pack of tissues. The farther you go to Jiayuguan, the stronger the wind and the darker the sky. It seems that dust is coming. After more than an hour, the bus arrived in Anxi county, stopped for 5 minutes, and it was convenient to get off. All the way from Dunhuang to Jiayuguan is Gobi desert, and green is rarely seen. As we approached Jiayuguan, a jagged rock suddenly appeared on the roadside. This is the landform of Ya Dan. It's not typical, but it really excites me for a long time. Not far from Ya Dan, there are many huge ivory windmills, which are slowly turning under the strong wind. I have never seen such a huge and beautiful windmill. It is said that the diameter of each windmill is 10 meter, which is a product of Siemens. In the car, my husband and a Lanzhou person sitting together had a good chat and told each other about their hometown. At 7: 40 pm, the bus arrived at Jiayuguan, and I took a taxi to the Great Wall Hotel, which is the newer of the only two three-star hotels in Jiayuguan, near the railway station. According to my original understanding, there are two trains from Jiayuguan to Lanzhou (K438 [14: 30-6: 38] and T658 [2 1: 48-7: 14]), among which T658 is a tourist bus originating from Jiuquan, with good conditions. I didn't know until I got to the station that there was only T658 soft berth ticket left on the ticket to Lanzhou on the 30th. At this time, I remembered that people from Jiayuguan and Jiuquan may have gone to Lanzhou for a long vacation of 5. 1 on the 30th. Although the soft berth ticket is more expensive than the hard berth ticket in 90 yuan, considering that Jiayuguan has few scenic spots to visit and the weather is bad, they bought the soft berth ticket and enjoyed bureau-level treatment. After buying the ticket, I asked for a bowl of shredded pork noodles in a small noodle restaurant in front of the station, which cost 3 yuan a bowl. I didn't expect there to be large and small bowls, so I was stupid when I served them. There are bowls everywhere, and the whole bowl is full of noodles. Only in the movie have I seen a northwest man squatting on the wall with this big bowl in his hand. I tried to add more food, but I only ate less than a quarter. I can't eat any more.

Back to the hotel, I thought it might be more difficult to buy a ticket from Lanzhou to Beijing during the long holiday. At this moment, I remembered that the Lanzhou man I met in the car in the afternoon once said that he used to work in the railway system and could help us buy tickets, but we didn't know his name and contact information, so we called the hotel in Lanzhou to book tickets, and the hotel didn't agree because we couldn't pay the deposit.

Today's consumption: 840 yuan

On April 30th, it was windy, dusty and cold.

Chartered to the first pier of the Great Wall and Jiayuguan Guancheng, the fare is 50 yuan, and it takes about 30 minutes to arrive; Tickets to 40 yuan. Other scenic spots in Jiayuguan: The cantilever Great Wall is a man-made scenic spot, so you don't have to go to Badaling Great Wall in Beijing. Brick paintings in Wei and Jin tombs are far from the city, and I didn't go. The first pier of the Great Wall (no admission) is the starting point of the Ming Great Wall. At present, only broken walls is left. The remains of a beacon tower stand high above the cliff, and the snow in Qilian Mountain is under the cliff. Unfortunately, the visibility is poor, otherwise you should be able to see the snow peaks in Qilian Mountain. It's relatively close from the first pier of the Great Wall to Guancheng, which takes about 10 minutes. You can see the magnificent Guancheng Tower from a distance. The sensational martial arts movie Xinlongmen Inn was shot here, especially the ten-minute shot of Xinlongmen Inn, which can clearly see the scenery inside and outside Guancheng. Heading for Guancheng with a cold wind of 6 or 7. Jiayuguan Guancheng is very big, and the city is surrounded by the city. Magnificent, worthy of being the first male pass in the world. It is said that when the weather is fine, standing on Guancheng can see the snow peak of Qilian Mountain in the distance. I wanted to spend more time in Guancheng, but the dusty wind turned everything around yellow. Maybe this is the smell of desert, but it's too cold. Back to the hotel at noon. As soon as we entered the door, we heard someone calling us from behind. Looking back, it turned out to be our new friend Mr. Wang in Lanzhou. God won't close one door, but he will open another. We are still worried about the plane ticket back to Beijing, so let's meet Mr. Wang again. Mr. Wang is really a warm-hearted man. As soon as he heard that we hadn't booked the tickets, he immediately called his wife in Lanzhou and asked her to find a way to buy tickets for us, so that we could rest assured that he had the tickets. After lunch, we went to Jiayuguan City. Jiayuguan city is small, so there is nothing to buy. The mutton in a restaurant called Grassland Xingfa is delicious, but the locals say that the best mutton in Jiayuguan should be tried in a restaurant called Mutton. At 3 o'clock, I received a phone call from Mr. Wang, telling me that the ticket had been bought and finally a stone fell to the ground. At 9: 48 in the evening, take the Jiuquan train to Lanzhou on time. The condition of soft sleeper is much better than that of hard sleeper, which is extremely comfortable. It seems that you got what you paid for.

Note: 1. The temperature in Jiayuguan is nearly 10 degrees lower than that in Dunhuang, so take more clothes.

2, in Jiayuguan taxi must bargain, generally in the city of 5 yuan money.

Today's consumption: 109 1 yuan.

In May 1 day, the light rain turned fine.

The bus arrived in Lanzhou, and it has been raining. Fortunately, we took an umbrella and booked a room in the guest building before going to Lanzhou. Who knows that I arrived at the guest building in the rain, and the receptionist did say that I didn't book a room, but I made a reservation by phone before I left Beijing, and called twice to confirm before I left Jiayuguan. The receptionist said with a straight face that she had never received my phone call to confirm the reservation. I pulled the phone records from my mobile phone, but they still refused to admit it, not even an apology. It seems that there are too many guests, so I gave the room I reserved to someone else. This kind of behavior is really irritating, which makes my impression of Lanzhou extremely bad. My mother and husband still have to argue with them, but I think what's the point of arguing with such people? I just remembered the introduction of New Century Hotel (three-star hotel) I saw on the travel website, so I contacted them quickly, just in time for the special price of New Century Hotel 5. 1. A triple standard room is only 298 yuan, including buffet breakfast. New Century Hotel is located in the east of Lanzhou Railway Station, newly built, with excellent conditions and rich buffet breakfast varieties, especially the freshly cooked beef Lamian Noodles, which tastes excellent. Moreover, the hotel provides the service of renting umbrellas, and you can get a beautiful umbrella as long as you pay the deposit in 20 yuan.

After breakfast, I went to Zhongshan Bridge, the most famous scenic spot in Lanzhou, in the rain. One of the advantages of living near the railway station is that the traffic is convenient. Take the 33rd Ring Road and you can reach Zhongshan Bridge in 20 minutes. Zhongshan Bridge, known as the first bridge of the Yellow River, is the oldest iron bridge on the Yellow River. It's magnificent, perhaps because of the rain, and there are few tourists. The Yellow River water here has been very turbid. Crossing Zhongshan Bridge is the famous Baitashan Park in Lanzhou (the fare is 5 yuan). Climb to the highest place and overlook the whole picture of Lanzhou. Lanzhou in the rain presents a rare clear outline (Lanzhou is seriously polluted, because both sides of the north and south are high mountains, blocking the wind, and Lanzhou is nestled in a narrow valley, which is extremely unfavorable for the diffusion of pollutants, so Lanzhou is gray all year round, and the air pollution index is at Grade 5). Cross the Yellow River by cable car (ticket 8 yuan/Downbound, for example, from the south bank of the Yellow River to the north bank is 12 yuan) and go back to the south bank to see the famous waterwheel in Lanzhou (ticket 2 yuan, Zhongshan Bridge westbound 1 km) and the statue of the Yellow River mother (waterwheel courtyard westbound 1 km). The weather is clearing up gradually, which is a rare sunny day in Lanzhou, and the air is bright. In the evening, I ate Lamian Noodles, the famous beef in Lanzhou (a new Jinding beef noodle restaurant opened in the railway station square), and I felt no different from what I ate in Beijing.

Note: 1. Lanzhou Mansion (two-star hotel) not far from Lanzhou Station is extremely cheap (triple standard room only needs 88 yuan). However, because it has just been renovated, the room smells very strong and will be clean after a while.

Be sure to stay in the north-facing room of New Century Hotel, because Lanzhou Railway Station is on its south side, and the sound of trains entering and leaving the station is very noisy.

3. When taking a taxi in Lanzhou, Li Xia set the starting price as 7 yuan. In fact, Lanzhou people only charge 5 yuan. Need to make an agreement with the driver to charge the fare according to 5 yuan.

4. When you eat beef noodles in Lanzhou, you must say in advance that you don't put peppers (there is a small bowl of Chili oil on the table, you can put it yourself according to your own taste), otherwise the noodles are too spicy to eat.

Today's consumption: 469 yuan

It turned cloudy to gray on May 2, which is a unique polluted weather in Lanzhou.

In the morning, I took a taxi to another famous scenic spot in Lanzhou-Wuquanshan Park (ticket 6 yuan). Probably because of the good weather, Wuquanshan Park is crowded with people, and countless vendors gather at the door. When I entered the park, I found that Wuquan Mountain was really nothing to see compared with the big park in Beijing, but all the Lanzhou snacks I tasted in the park were sweet fermented grains (similar to fermented barley) and

Arriving at Lanzhou Station at 1: 30 in the afternoon, a railway worker shouted at the gate of the waiting room: "The T76 to Beijing is already on the platform. You can cut the ticket and get on the bus in 2 yuan in advance." There are really many people who spend money to get on the bus in advance. I thought Lanzhou Railway Station really knew how to do business. The eloquence of the ticket cutter understands why many people are willing to spend 2 yuan more on the bus. The waiting area is in chaos. People huddle together with big bags, children cry and adults scream. Someone suggested to the station staff that they could cut the tickets earlier. The staff said impatiently that T76 had not entered the station yet. How can I cut the ticket? But I clearly heard the staff calling T76 to the platform at the gate of the waiting room, and asked someone to pay for getting on the bus. It seems that Lanzhou Railway Station is really successful in business. 1: 45, finally cut the ticket and let it go.

Today's consumption: 13 12 yuan (including return ticket 1 170 yuan, lower berth 390 yuan/Zhang).

May 3, sunny

The conditions of this train from Lanzhou to Beijing are average, especially the box lunch provided by the dining car, which is exactly the same as that at noon last night and tastes extremely bad. Might as well eat instant noodles.

The bus arrived at Beijing West Railway Station at 14: 30 in the afternoon, and I finally returned to the familiar Beijing, which felt really good.