Ningxia, a province in the west of my country. Because the transportation there is not very convenient, and because there are no particularly famous scenic spots there, I have traveled all over the country, inside and outside the Great Wall, but I have never set foot in Ningxia. When the plane landed at Yinchuan Airport and I set foot on the land of Yinchuan, almost all the capital cities of provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country were gone, only Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region was left.
Yinchuan is located in the northwest, with a high latitude and a high altitude. It is known as a summer resort. In midsummer, when Shanghai is extremely hot, the temperature in Ningxia does not exceed 30 degrees Celsius during the day. Before boarding the plane in Shanghai this morning, I was sweating profusely. When I came to Yinchuan and got off the plane, I had to put on my coat quickly, because the temperature here was only 20 degrees because of the rain. The title of Yinchuan summer resort is just as it should be.
The urban area of Yinchuan is quite large. We took the airport bus from the airport to the urban area of Yinchuan, and experienced the style of Yinchuan through the window. Yinchuan used to be small and dilapidated. The name of Yinchuan has a origin: In the past, this place was a piece of silver-white saline-alkali land, lying across the northwest land like a river, so people gave this place the nice name of Yinchuan. This name is not only appropriate, but also has good expectations for this land. In a later chat with the driver while taking a taxi, the driver jokingly said: Yinchuan used to be "one street, two buildings, one police officer at both ends, and one park with two monkeys". Of course this is a joke, an exaggeration. But this more or less reflects the fact that Yinchuan was small and dilapidated in the old days.
Today's Yinchuan is no longer what it used to be. The urban area is already very large, with a population of more than two million. The scene outside the car window seems to be the style of an emerging new city. Both sides of the road are full of high-rise buildings, neat and beautiful, one row after another, one building after another. The greening of the city is very good, and from time to time, a large green space flashes past the car window on the side of the road. Our car was driving along Beijing Road, a main road in Yinchuan, and we saw a wide green belt stretching parallel to the long Beijing Road in front of us. Citizen fitness places appeared every other section of the green belt, and various colorful fitness equipment Placed in the green trees is very eye-catching. There is a middle school beside the road. The school's teaching building is very beautiful, and the school's facilities such as the playground and running track are very modern, which is not inferior to any school in a big city.
Yinchuan is not a small city, with wide roads and a small population, so the traffic pressure may not be too great. There are few overpasses in the urban area, and the intersections at the intersections are all flat. Didn't see the elevated road either. Although the population is small, the number of cars may be quite high, and some sections of the road are severely congested during morning and evening peak hours. The bus lines reach all corners of the city, but the interval between buses is much longer than that in Shanghai. If you take the airport bus at the airport, the interval is more than an hour. This brings inconvenience to foreign tourists, but fortunately, taxis are easier to take and the price is not expensive.
Traveling in Yinchuan is very convenient. We stayed in a hotel near Yinchuan Railway Station, not far from the hotel is the Yinchuan Tourist Distribution Center. There are direct tourist trains leading to scenic spots around Yinchuan. There are many tourist routes, covering almost all the surrounding scenic spots, and the price is very cheap, and it is very convenient to buy tickets. Just scan the QR code of the distribution center and you can operate it on your mobile phone. Including ordering, refunding, changing the time, changing the route, etc., and there is no charge for refunding or changing the ticket. It is very suitable for free travel.
The day after arriving in Yinchuan, we also set off from here and visited several famous scenic spots near Yinchuan. First went to Sand Lake. Shahu Scenic Spot is fifty or sixty kilometers away from Yinchuan, and is a very popular scenic spot. There are dry deserts here, and lakes with sparkling water here; there are both the vigor of the north and the charm of the south. The sand lake combines and interweaves two completely different landforms and scenery, and then presents it to tourists, which is very unique.
The annual precipitation in Ningxia is not much, and the formation of the lake should be due to the collection of high mountains and flowing water here. According to reports, the desert here covers an area of more than 20 square kilometers, and the highest point of the sand dunes can reach 100 meters. Standing on the height of the sand dunes, looking up from a distance, the stretch of sandy land is vast and paved into the distance. Turn around and look at your feet. The sand dunes are close to the lake. When you reach the lake, the desert suddenly disappears. Instead, there is a very open water country. The area of this lake is more than 20 square kilometers. The average water depth is about two meters.
The lake is full of reeds, and the reeds are as tall as a person, in clusters and pieces. Rivers are formed between clusters of reeds. These rivers are criss-crossed and dense like cobwebs. Cruise ships pass slowly in the river, as if entering a maze. It feels similar to visiting the rivers, lakes and ports in the south. No wonder Ningxia is known as the top of the Yangtze River.
We sat by the lake for a rest, and behind us was the vast desert, with no green and no vitality. In front of you is an open lake, full of vitality. The breeze gently blows the reeds in the lake, making a rustling sound; from time to time there are a few mandarin ducks on the water surface, and water birds such as wild ducks swim quietly, making ripples; splashes. I really didn't expect that in the northwest, there are such beautiful scenery in the desert, which is really intoxicating.
There are many restaurants around the Shahu Scenic Area. The most famous specialty here is Shahu Fish Head. The big fish head in Shahu Lake is stewed with large grains of salt, and there is a Shahu fish split in half lying on a two-foot disc. Bright color, no fishy smell. But the price is expensive, more expensive than the price of Yinchuan Hotel. The fish heads are sold by the catty, and the smaller fish heads cost about two catties, and they are served on a large plate. There is more than enough food for two people, there is no need to order other dishes.
Zhenbeibao Film and Television City is another scenic spot popular among tourists near Yinchuan. It is an AAAAA-level tourist attraction integrating sightseeing, entertainment, leisure, catering and shopping. Features, attracting visitors from all over the world. As a film and television city, the place is not too small, with a radius of less than one kilometer. Many film and television works were filmed here, such as "Red Sorghum", "Wrangler", "New Dragon Inn" and more than a dozen movies and many TV series. The scenic spot is composed of many film and television shooting landscapes such as Mingcheng, Qingcheng, and the old Yinchuan street. "Zhenbei Fort" is the Ming City, which was a frontier fortress in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. A new castle was built not far from Zhenbei Fort, and it was called "Zhennan Fort", that is, Qingcheng. The two ancient castles are now only left with a circle of rammed earth walls, and the houses inside the walls are all built for shooting film and television works. Now many movie scenes are still preserved, allowing visitors to relive the artistic conception in the movie story. The old Yinchuan street was built for filming a few years ago. Seeing this street, I thought of the joke that the taxi driver said "one policeman controls two ends, one park has two monkeys".
There is almost no grass growing in the film and television city, but this desolation is limited within the scope of the wall. Compared with the green field around the film and television city, it looks very abrupt and out of place. The film and television city is based on earthy yellow tone. In the scene of the movie "Red Sorghum", Jiu'er is sitting on a donkey, passing through the Moon Gate of Shibalipo, and walking slowly in the vast loess, which makes people feel the endless desert, the boundless Loess, boundless suffering. In fact, the shots were shot in this film and television city less than one square kilometer. The pictures of "Red Sorghum" give people a lot of visual shock and imagination, and the film has achieved great success. "Red Sorghum" has won awards in many famous international film festivals, the most important award being the Golden Bear Award at the 38th Berlin Film Festival.
Indeed, it is very suitable for shooting works in the old North, reflecting stories from decades to hundreds of years ago.
Not far from Yinchuan, there is also the mysterious rock painting of Helan Mountain. We drove towards Helan Mountain by car, and after a while, we saw a row of mountains lying in front of us, like a row of towering walls. It is this wall that protects Ningxia. It blocks the eastward movement of the Tengger Desert and the southward invasion of severe cold in the north, so Ningxia has the reputation of fortifying the south of the Yangtze River. The mountain in front of me is very high and steep. There is no vegetation on it, and taupe rocks are exposed everywhere. When I came to the foot of the mountain, I looked up and saw that the strange rocks were rugged and hideous. The mountains seem to come to an abrupt end here. The tall peaks directly connect to the relatively flat terrain at the foot of the mountain without transitioning through relatively low peaks.
This is where the rock paintings of Helan Mountain are located, and it is the place where the prehistoric northern minorities lived, hunted, lived and multiplied. According to research on the rock paintings of Helan Mountain in the late Neolithic Age, 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, writing had not yet appeared, and the ancestors used this primitive method to record production and living scenes.
The petroglyphs here are very concentrated, and there should be hundreds of groups for tourists to visit. Most of the rock paintings are sheep, cattle, horses, camels, tigers, leopards and other animal patterns, and there are also some life scenes such as grazing, hunting and so on. The screens are not big, one or two feet square. The rock paintings have simple lines and immature brushwork, but these truly reproduce their social customs and life interests at that time. The most important petroglyph here is a petroglyph known as the sun god. The picture is a round face with clear eyes, ears, mouth and nose. Outside the outline of the round face, there are outward radial lines, like rays of light. This petroglyph has a high position, so it is speculated by archaeologists that it was the object of worship by the ancients during sacrifices, reflecting the cultural connotation of primitive tribes' worship of nature and their yearning and pursuit for a better life.
Standing in front of the rock paintings, under the cool breeze of Helan Mountain, looking at the various rock paintings, it seems that you are spying on the secrets of the ancestors thousands of years ago, and it seems that you are talking to the predecessors of the northern nomads. Very mysterious. Rock paintings give us unlimited imagination.
There is a scenic spot called Shapotou more than 200 kilometers southwest of Yinchuan. It takes three and a half hours to travel by car. Here is the desert and the Yellow River landscape. There are many recreational items, such as sand boarding, desert jeeps, desert ziplines, sheepskin rafts, etc., which are good places for recreation. It's a pity that there are strict age restrictions on these challenging thrill rides. We are past the age limit to experience the joy of these desert projects. But it's really a good desert carnival for young people.
There is a viewing platform at the height of Shapotou Scenic Area. Standing here, you can see the rolling Yellow River rushing eastward, and you can see the rolling mountains on the other side of the river. . A sculpture stands on the viewing platform, which is the statue of Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei. I saw Wang Wei holding a pen in his hand, holding his head up, looking imposing. Next to the statue are engraved two famous poems by the poet: the desert is solitary, and the long river falls into the sun. This is an excellent portrayal of the scenery of Shapotou.
The desert in Shapotou is very large. Take a shuttle bus from the viewing platform to enter the hinterland of the desert. There are sand dunes all around. The roads in the desert are undergoing desert treatment on both sides, and the sand is surrounded by dry grass to form a dense two-foot square. squares to stop the flow of yellow sand. This method of sand control is very effective. According to statistics, my country has used this method to control more than 10,000 square kilometers of deserts, turning many deserts into oases. The desert here is very large. Looking around, it is full of yellow sand, the dunes are not very high, and the lines of the ridges of the dunes are not very clear. I feel that it is slightly inferior to the dunes in Dunhuang. But it doesn't matter, the desert in Shapotou is accompanied by the Yellow River, and it is reflected by the majestic mountains, which can also show the vigor of the desert to the world.
2019.9
