Sights in Gānsù
- Sort by:
- Popular
-
Yùquán Temple
Ascending in layers up the hillside above Qínchéng, this Taoist temple is a pleasant, green and rambling shrine. Of note are the ancient cypress trees, some more than 1000 years old.
reviewed
-
Wooden Pagoda
In the main square one block north of the Great Buddha Temple, this pagoda is a brick and wooden structure that was first built in AD 528. Note that this pagoda represents wood as the earth stupa represents earth in the Chinese theory of the five elements (wood, earth, water, fire and metal).
reviewed
-
White Pagoda Hill
This park is on the northern bank of the Yellow River. At its zenith is White Pagoda Temple (白塔寺; Báitǎ Sì), originally built during the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368), from where there are good views across the city. A cable car spans the river; the terminal is just to the west of Zhōngshān Bridge. Bus 34 or 137 comes here from in front of the train station on Tianshui Nanlu.
reviewed
-
A
White Cloud Temple
This largely rebuilt Qing-dynasty Taoist temple is an oasis of reverential calm at the heart of the city. About 20 black-clad bearded monks inhabit the place – several of them are qualified to read fortunes; other soothsayers in eccentric attire and antique glasses muster outside the temple.
reviewed
-
B
Water Wheels
A short stroll from White Cloud Temple are these two huge copies of irrigation devices that once lined the Yellow River.
reviewed
-
Wànshòu Temple
If you have a bit of time to kill, this cedar-scented temple extends seven levels up the hillside at the northwest fringe of Línxià. Along the cliffs you can visit other surrounding temples overlooking the city. Take bus 6 to the west bus station and head for the nine-storey pagoda on the ridge located opposite.
reviewed
-
Serti Gompa
On the Gānsù side, higher up the hill, is this smaller monastery with its golden- and silver-roofed halls. The monastery dates from 1748 and is also simply referred to as Gānsù Monastery. Views are lovely from here. Like its cousin across the border in Sìchuān, the monastery is best visited in the morning (7am to 8am and 10.30am to 1pm) and late afternoon (6pm to 8pm).
reviewed
-
Nunnery
This welcoming nunnery (ani gompa in Tibetan, 尼姑庵, nígū'ān in Chinese) is on the hill above the Tibetan part of town.
reviewed
-
Ngakpa Gompa
Next door is the small Nyingmapa (Red Hat) school monastery, whose lay monks wear striking red and white robes and long, braided hair.
reviewed
-
Milarepa Palace
About 2km from the bus station along the main road towards Xiàhé is this towering temple, ringed by prayer wheels. The port-coloured building is highly unusual in the Tibetan world. It's really worth buying the entrance ticket to investigate the incredible interior (remove your shoes), where a sacred meteorite is also housed. The ground-floor hall is a powerful spectacle, a galaxy of Bodhisattvas, Buddhist statues and celestial figures gloomily illuminated by yak-butter lamps. Climb upstairs to a further staggering display of lamas and living Buddhas on the 2nd floor; more deities muster on the 4th floor. An unsettling array of fearsome, blue and turquoise tantric effigie…
reviewed
Advertisement
-
Labrang Monastery
Even the most illustrious of China's other incense-wreathed temples pale in comparison with the vast magnitude of this astounding complex. The palpable spiritual energy that emanates from this sacred monastery is only matched by the potent veneration brought by its unending flow of Tibetan pilgrims. Even if Tibet is not on your itinerary, the monastery sufficiently conveys the esoteric mystique of its devout persuasions, leaving indelible impressions of a deeply sacred domain.
The monastery is one of the six major Tibetan monasteries of the Gelugpa order (Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism). The others are Ganden, Sera and Drepung Monasteries near Lhasa; Tashilhunpo Monas…
reviewed
-
Kerti Gompa
Rising up on the Sìchuān side of the river is this monastery – otherwise dubbed the Sìchuān Monastery – built in 1413, home to around 700 monks and composed of five temples and colleges. A short walk from the monastery stand small pavilions built over a brook whose waters power a round-the-clock revolving of prayer wheels housed inside (the ne plus ultra of holiness)!
reviewed
-
Great Buddha Temple
Originally dating to 1098 (Western Xia dynasty), this excellent temple contains an astonishing 35m-long sleeping Buddha – China's largest of this variety – surrounded by mouldering clay arhats and Qing-dynasty murals. Take a good look at the main hall and the woodwork, including the doors – it's one of the few wooden structures from this era still standing in China. A colony of bats squeaks high up in its rafters along with flitting flocks of swallows. Until the 1960s, small children would clamber into the huge Buddha and play around inside his tummy. The stairs to the floor above are, sadly, inaccessible. Out the back is the impressive white earth stupa (土塔; tǔ…
reviewed
-
Gānsù Provincial Museum
This sparkling museum has an intriguing collection of Silk Road artefacts, including inscribed Han-dynasty wooden tablets used to relay messages along the Silk Road and a graceful Eastern Han (25 BC–AD 220) bronze horse galloping upon the back of a swallow. The latter, known as the 'Flying Horse of Wuwei', was unearthed at Léitái and is much reproduced across northwestern China. Unearthed 120km northeast of Lánzhōu, a 2nd-century-BC silver plate depicting Bacchus, the Greco-Roman god of wine, may set your mind pondering. Among other items on view are Persian coins, some lovely Bodhisattva statues from Tiāntīshān and a collection of dinosaur skeletons upstairs, where…
reviewed
-
Fúxī Temple
Cracked during the Sìchuān earthquake of 2008, this Ming-dynasty temple was begun in 1483. The main hall is one of the most elaborate structures in Gānsù, with intricate wooden door panels and original paintings of the 64 hexagrams (varying combinations of the eight trigrams used in the I Ching) on the ceiling.
One of the mythic progenitors of the Chinese people, leaf-clad Fúxī was reputedly a local of Chenji (present-day Tiānshuǐ) who introduced the domestication of animals, hunting and the eight trigrams (used for divination) to early Chinese civilisation. A pleasant pedestrian area filled with itinerant musicians, wood carvers and souvenir stalls has been built at t…
reviewed
-
Dūnhuáng Museum
The Dūnhuáng Museum is largely unchanged since opening in 1984; there's little here you can't see at the Mògāo Caves or the Jade Gate Pass museum.
reviewed
-
Beach
East of the water wheels, this beach area is bursting on weekends with volleyball games, kites, speedboats and coracle raft trips (Y30 to Y40) across the chocolate-coloured river.
reviewed
