2015 China

22 April, Zhangye
Beichen Hotel 168CNY

Zhangye’s pristine white statue of Marco Polo is labelled MaKe BaLuo. The famous explorer-journalist, born in Venice 1254, spent 17 years in China, serving the Mongol leader Kublai Khan. It was in 1271 that a young Marco first left Italy for China with his father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, old China hands already well-known to Kublai Khan. Marco’s accounts of their journey through the Middle East “provided the western world with its first clear picture of the East’s geography and ethnic customs”. It took four years for the Polos to reach China and Kublai Khan at his summer palace, Xanadu. “Khan eventually employed Marco as a special envoy. As a result, he sent Marco into far-flung areas of Asia never before explored by Europeans ... From his travels, Marco amassed not only great knowledge about the Mongol empire, but incredible wonder. He marvelled at the empire’s use of paper money, an idea that had failed to reach Europe, and was in awe of its economy and scale of production ... Just a few years after his return to Venice, Marco commanded a ship in a war against the rival city of Genoa. He was eventually captured and sentenced to a Genoese prison, where he met a fellow prisoner and writer named Rustichello. As the two men became friends, Marco told Rustichello about his time in Asia, what he'd seen, where he'd travelled and what he’d accomplished. His stories were soon committed to paper and eventually published as a book called The Description of the World, later known as The Travels of Marco Polo.” (biography.com)

How one experiences the “rainbow rocks” at Zhangye Danxia National Geopark is dependent entirely on the weather, more particularly on the quality of the light. We had good light, but not the best. The intensity of the colours, therefore, was good, but not the best. The park is an hour by local bus from Zhangye. Entrance requires that you also purchase tickets for the shuttle buses within the park that trundle visitors from one viewing platform to the next. As the sun got lower, the light improved and the colours really began to pop and please. Undoubtedly the colours are at their astonishing best (a la perhaps those depicted on the entrance ticket) when the sun is low and the light coming from the side. The park’s opening hours unfortunately prevent viewing at these times. We came away happy though, came away saying the rocks were worth the 15-hour train journey to see them. The scientific explanation for the bizarre colouring takes me out of my league, but for what it’s worth, here it is: “China Danxia is the name given in China to landscapes developed on continental red terrigenous sedimentary beds influenced by endogenous forces (including uplift) and exogenous forces (including weathering and erosion).” (Unesco.org) [A note on my Danxia photos: I always “Auto Correct” my photos using Microsoft Office Picture Manager. This reduces glare, which slightly intensifies colours. I have done the same for the Danxia photos, but no additional photoshopping.]

We dined well for virtually nothing. We liked the look of a little place we passed on our way home from the bus station and popped in to be offered a Chinese-only menu, no photos. We beckoned the hostess outside and showed her the photo on their advertising board that appealed. She called another woman and the chef to also look at the photo and consult. Back inside, she wrote something in Chinese and showed it to us, obviously anxious that we understood what it was we had ordered. We shrugged and smiled, none the wiser. Away she went and came back shortly with the following written on her phone via a Google Translate clone: “Green beans and fried flesh”. It was delicious!