Walking into the "Jiangnan Water Town" Zhangye, Gansu-

The desolate desert and the endless Gobi seem to be the Hexi Corridor in Gansu. But in fact, the natural scenery of Hexi Corridor is not so monotonous. Walking eastward along Qilian Mountain, the scenery in front of you is constantly changing. Gobi, grassland, hills and snow-capped mountains are far more diverse than I expected. After several hours of hard work, I finally arrived in Zhangye, a city that spans the Heihe River, the largest river basin.

Compared with the magnificence of Danxia, the hills are more magnificent, just like the turbulent waves and huge waves that were suddenly frozen. The grotesque peaks and rocks stand around the "waves", devouring mountains and rivers, which is amazing.

Zhangye is an important town in Hexi Corridor and one of the "Four Counties in Hexi" in the Western Han Dynasty. Yang Di once held the "World Expo" here, and the legend of the Great Buddha Temple in Xixia King Temple is still circulating today. What attracted me to Zhangye is not only these rich historical details, but also the geological park that has long been famous here.

No one does not praise Zhang Ye's Danxia landform. With the help of the melting water of Qilian Mountain, many ever-changing Danxia landforms have formed around Zhangye City. Although there is no dense vegetation of Danxia in the south, it has magnificent characteristics.

In my inn, the boss recommended Pingshan Lake Grand Canyon, which I have never heard of. So, under his repeated assurances of "Don't lose the Grand Canyon", we in journey to the south came to Pingshan Lake Grand Canyon, which is about an hour's drive from downtown Zhangye.

We first took the shuttle bus to the first observation deck, and then we were told that the rest of the journey needed to be explored on foot. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I thought it was a great surprise. From this perspective, it is no longer a simple "sightseeing spot", but a deeper way for people to get in touch with nature. Since we don't need to consider the bus time, our mood of seeing the scenery becomes more leisurely.

On the south side of Pingshan Lake Grand Canyon are typical Danxia and hilly landforms dominated by red beds. It was white after the snow, and the red Danxia in the Grand Canyon was particularly bright against the white snow. On the exposed mountain, there are clear marks, just like being cut neatly by sharp things, which are formed by long-term wind erosion.

Compared with the magnificence of Danxia, the hills are more magnificent, just like the turbulent waves and huge waves that were suddenly frozen. The grotesque peaks and rocks stand around the "waves", devouring mountains and rivers, which is amazing. I have to say that nature is indeed the most patient and persistent craftsman. In billions of years, after geological processes such as crustal uplift, water invasion and wind erosion, everything has quietly come into being at a speed that all living things cannot feel.

Continuing along the path, the gentle hills were quickly replaced by deep and narrow canyons, and there seemed to be endless steps in front of us. We climbed down carefully and finally came to the bottom of the canyon. It is still suffering from water erosion for a long time, and the power of those occasional heavy rains and trickles should not be underestimated. They carved criss-crossing marks on the rock wall, widened the canyon day after day, year after year, and hewed out peaks in various ways until the canyon became a hill again in another million or ten million years. Nature gives us the best interpretation of the sentence "The world is not weaker than water, and the strong cannot win".

Walking at the bottom of the valley, sometimes wide and sometimes claustrophobic, sometimes straight and sometimes winding, you can often see the "first-line sky" when you look up. The so-called "sight" refers to the valley between cliff walls. Because it is narrow, people standing at the bottom of the valley can only see a thin line of sky squeezed between the cliffs.

If you want to go up from the bottom of the valley, you can take a shortcut and climb two straight metal ladders, or you can walk up slowly from the flat road next to you. In order to have a feeling of "adventure", I chose a ladder hidden behind a dark gap. The gap is only half a meter wide. You need to step on the pedal nailed to the rock and climb over the boulder in the way to see the ladder. Next, in front of us is a vertical cliff with a drop of about 60 meters. The ladder was built near the cliff. I was exhausted halfway up, but if I want to reach the top, I have to climb more than 800 steps.

The so-called "infinite scenery of dangerous peaks", after reaching the heights, the vast scenery reappears, and the melting snow of the mountains is vast and magnificent, which is a magnificent picture drawn by time.

Even if nothing grows, colorful Danxia has another smart and lively gesture. All kinds of colors are intertwined and layered, like waves rolling along the mountain, showing a passion that lasts for millions or even millions of years, as if the rock had life.

The Pingshan Lake Grand Canyon is still unfinished, and we continue to drive to the colorful Danxia in the west of Zhangye City. This is a stop that every tourist will not miss. It is famous for the movie "Three Guns Surprise", but only when you have seen it yourself can you really appreciate its charm.

When I talked with the innkeeper about colorful Danxia the night before, I said that I had been to Rainbow Beach in Xinjiang a few years ago, which was very similar to colorful Danxia. The boss looked at me with his unique light-colored eyes of ethnic minorities, pulled off the corners of his mouth and said, "Hey!" Colorful Danxia is much larger than Rainbow Beach!

As soon as I saw the colorful Danxia, I finally knew what he meant by "much bigger". Colorful Danxia is more than 40 kilometers long from east to west and covers an area of about 300 square kilometers. The scene is spectacular. In all directions, there are mountains arched on the flat ground. Even if you climb the plank road, there is no end in sight.

If it is only huge, it is not enough to be favored by tourists from all over the world. The real uniqueness of colorful Danxia lies in color. It is called "colorful Danxia" because the local rocks are full of bright colors, which is because the metal components contained in them are combined with different meteorological environments. If the weather is clear and the air is fresh, we can clearly distinguish different colors such as red, orange, yellow, green, gray-blue, cyan and black. They form parallel lines, neatly arranged on the mountain, like ribbons, and like someone deliberately painted them. In Huai Nan Zi Ben Jing Xun, the sentence "Five winning materials flow to the ground" is about colorful Danxia, which is really accurate.

Colorful Danxia takes at least a million years to form, and it can't be copied or regenerated. In order to protect this natural resource to the greatest extent, only four or five observation decks and plank roads have been built in the scenic area, and the ferry between observation decks needs environmental protection vehicles.

Before I stepped onto the observation deck, I just looked at the red hill passing by the window and was deeply shocked by the scenery in front of me. Even if nothing grows, colorful Danxia has another smart and lively gesture. The colors are intertwined and layered, and the waves generally fluctuate along the mountain, showing the passion that lasted for millions or even millions of years, as if the rock had life.

Appreciating at the foot of the mountain is a bit like looking at a leopard in a tube. Climbing up the observation deck, surrounded by an endless ocean of colors, is more immersive. The terrain here is gentle and undulating, with no steep cliffs. Looking closely at the grain gully, looking up and looking far away, the rhythmic lines are really magnificent, spectacular in shape and magnificent in color.

When the angle of the sun slowly moved down, I also rushed to the last observation deck. At this time, the light became soft and fuzzy, Danxia gradually fainted a touch of orange, and the color of the mountain seemed to become more intense. I seem to see a group of girls from the western regions, wearing colorful dresses, dancing on the vast land, which is intoxicating.

If the Thousand-Buddha Cave embedded in the precipice is an eye-opener, then the 33-day grottoes can't help asking: What kind of belief is this, so as to create such a wonder on earth?

Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, Buddhism has entered the Central Plains through the Silk Road, and grotto art has flourished in Hexi Corridor for thousands of years. The next day, we drove south from the city to Sunan County, the only Yugur autonomous county in China, where the Horseshoe Grottoes are located.

The Horseshoe Grottoes are actually a group of caves. Different from the Mogao Grottoes, the Mogao Grottoes were dug in the same area or adjacent cliffs. There are seven caves and caves, large and small, distributed over an area of more than 65,438+000 square kilometers. According to research, people first dug holes here to study Confucianism, not to meditate or worship Buddha. According to the biography of Guo Xuan in the Book of Jin, during the Sixteen Countries Period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, a Confucian scholar named Guo Xuan went to Zhangye to worship the hermit Guo He as his teacher. After Guo He died, he kept the tomb for three years and moved to Songlin Valley (now Horseshoe Temple), where he carved grottoes, studied classics, wrote books and gave lectures. "Ganzhou County Records" also said: "Guo Yun and his disciples carved caves, and later expanded the statue." At this time, Confucianism, Han Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism merged and exchanged with each other, forming a unique horseshoe-shaped grottoes culture.

The nearest entrance is the Thousand Buddha Cave. When you step into the door, you will see a steep cliff. Visually, there are hundreds of shrines, most of which are just an empty one. As you approach, you will see some lower shrines filled with Buddhist instruments offered by believers. The larger caves are Buddhist temples dedicated to different gods and buddhas, with the Hall of the Great Hero in the middle and the Guanyin Hall and the Yamatonokusushi Hall on both sides.

If the Thousand-Buddha Cave embedded in the precipice is an eye-opener, then the 33-day grottoes can't help asking: What kind of belief is this, so as to create such a wonder on earth? This is a temple built on a steep and flat cliff, arranged in a pagoda shape from top to bottom, with 7 layers of 2 1 caves, and each layer is connected by winding corridors. I think, instead of standing at the foot of the mountain and imagining the inside of the grottoes through a thick stone wall, it is better to experience it yourself. However, it is not easy to climb the 33-day grottoes. This is a double test of spirit and body. Each stone step is very steep and circuitous. Sometimes you have to walk sideways, and sometimes you have to bend over and climb with your hands and feet.

Perhaps this is the meaning of "thirty-three days": Buddhist scriptures say that the center of Mount Sumi is Indra, and the four peaks in four directions each have eight days, and eight gods live there, which is 4832 days. Together with Indra in the center, it is "33 days". This is the "pure land of western bliss" mentioned in Buddhist scriptures. If people accumulate virtue and do good deeds all their lives, they can transcend the three realms, enter Xu Mi and have fun with the gods. The arduous climb to the thirty-three-day grottoes tells people that if they want to enter the paradise, they must go through all kinds of twists and turns and tests.

After coming down from the thirty-three-day grottoes, we didn't know where to go next, so we asked the staff at the ticket office. There are few tourists in winter, and the staff are happy to chat with us. Only then did I know that among the Horseshoe Temple Grottoes, the most historic one is not the 33-day Grottoes, but the Jinta Temple Grottoes. In thirty-three days, except for the overall structure, the statue has been destroyed to 7788. However, there was a very precious central stone pillar in the Jinta Temple Grottoes during the Sixteen Kingdoms Period. At that time, the Buddha statues were not influenced by China culture, but had obvious Indian Gandhara style. The three-dimensional flying sculpture on the pillar is simple, which is obviously different from the classic flying sculpture image of Mogao Grottoes. Unfortunately, the Jinta Temple Grottoes are closed to the public during the period of protection and restoration.

Under the guidance of the staff, we walked along the road in the scenic spot, and after several turns, our eyes suddenly became clear. Here we have reached the edge of the cliff, and the Qilian Mountain that accompanied us all the way suddenly appeared in front of us, as if within reach. The top of the mountain is covered with snow, the smoke of Yugur people at the foot of the mountain is curling, colorful prayer flags dance in the wind, and golden prayer flags shine in the sun. The local people on the side of the prayer wheel saw that we were very happy to see the snow-capped mountains, so they enthusiastically suggested that we come back in summer, because the opposite hillside would be full of blue flowers, which is a good place for summer vacation.

The snow in Qilian Mountain doesn't melt all year round, but another mountain close at hand is full of green. The poem "Don't look at the snow in Qilian Mountain and mistake Zhang Ye for Jiangnan" suddenly appeared in my mind. The ancients did not deceive me. This is really an oasis in Hexi.