Bajiao city, an ancient moat lying on the Silk Road

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On the second day of our trip to west of China, we headed for the Bajiao city. The Bajiao city is located in the confluence of Yangqu River and Yangla River, eastern of Ganga Beach, Xiahe County, Gansu Province. This site is basically completely preserved, and was listed as a key cultural relics protection unit in Gansu Province in 1981. The Bajiao city was named because the city has eight corners, with the enclosing walls of a hollow cross. The total length of this city is 2193.4 m, the existing ruins outside the city is 1,080-meters long, and the city covers an area of 200,000 square meters. There is moat outside the city, the city was built before the Tang Dynasty, and is very unique.

We departure at 7:30 that morning, and looked for a Lanzhou beef noodles Restaurant in the street in Lanzhou for breakfast, we all drooled when seeing the noodles.

We arrived at Xiangyang pier at around 11 am, and ready to go to Bingling Temple Grottoe.

No minutes later the boat stopped and the visibility on the reservoir is low, so we had to give up the Bingling Temple trip, and returned to sunny pier.

It was about 1 hour’s drive from the pier to Linxia County, we had lunch in a restaurant, the muslim characteristic stir-fried chicken with big dish cost RMB 70.

Half past three in the afternoon, the sky became clear up, the Gannan grassland scenery outside of the vehicle was fascinating, and the purple Gesang is very beautiful.

This is a pass near the Bajiao city.

Gesanghua

This pass is the centre of the Tibetans.

Returning to the blue sky, we all could not help but get excited.

The road leading to the city is the concrete road newly built, nice scenery all the way. We arrived at Bajiao city sites at 17:00.

It is the gate of Bajiao city sites, in fact, it is just a hole dug in the wall, and I could not tell where the “door sheet” is. There are two children playing old tires near the gate, in the world of electronic games of today, have the city children experience this old game?

These simple Tibetans in the city

These Tibetans came back from outside.

When shooting at the city gate, come a Tibetan old man who wanted to say something to us, finally understood that he asked us to buy tickets. The ticket is $ 20 per person. Left: the road on the wall. Right: the road up the wall.

The name of the city suggests there are eight corner of the ancient city, and this picture is one of the corners.

What's the height of wall of the city?

According to the introduction of the old man that sold tickets, we could walk around the city on the ancient city walls, but after walking one or two meters later there was a gap, so we had to drop from the wall. The constructions within the city are separated by mounds and wooden doors into small yards, so after I dropped from the walls I broke into the Tibetan courtyard house, a Tibetan mastiff stared at me with a howl, I carried my camera and run out of the yard embarrassed.

Later I came across several Tibetans, seeing my embarrassing look, they were all laughing but with no intention.

Then I began to take pictures for them, at the beginning, one of the women covered her face with hands and didn’t let me shoot.

Finally, some people came up and stood there for shooting. I want to specially introduce this little girl in red clothes. In this beautiful Bajiao city, there are still dozens of families living there. Though the city is small, there still is a primary school, and the Tibetan children live a hard life there, but they study hard. This girl is just one of them.