Attractions: Yardang National Geologic Park, Yumen Pass, Great Wall of Han Dynasty, Mingshashan Desert
Meal: Not Included
Hotel: Overnight in Dunhuang
After breakfast, you will be taken to explore the remote wild Gobi Desert landscape as well as several legendary historical sites. Drive westwards about 100 km, you will firstly arrive at Yumen Pass (Jade Gate Pass). Built in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Yumen Pass, also known as the Small Fangpan City, prospered with the prosperity of the Silk Road, and was once a place through which merchants from the Western regions and people from the Central Plains came and went. Because Hetian jade was imported from here to the Central Plains since ancient times, it is called the Jade Gate Pass.
About 5 km from Yumen Pass is the Ruin of Great Wall of Han Dynasty. The Great Wall of Han Dynasty is also known as the Outer Great Wall, and its ancillary facilities are the outer Leh City. The Great Wall was built in the early years of Emperor Wudi of Han Dynasty. After several years of investigation by archeologists, it was found that the Han Dynasty had built a "Outer Great Wall" of more than 10,000 kilometers from Dunhuang in Gansu Province to Pyongyang in North Korea in the east. It was the "Outer Great Wall" built by the Han Dynasty and longer than the Ming Wall.
Keep driving more 80 km, you will get to Yardang National Geologic Park. Commonly known as Dunhuang Yadan Devil City. It is an important part of Dunhuang Global Geopark in China. At the same time, it is also one of the three most beautiful Yadan landforms in China. Dunhuang Yadan landforms are the largest, most mature and most ornamental communities of Yadan landforms found in the world so far. In December 2001, the Ministry of Land and Resources approved the establishment of the "Gansu Dunhuang Yadan National Geopark". In August 2003, the park was officially opened and opened to visitors. In November 2006, it was assessed by the National Tourism Administration as an AAAA level tourist attraction, and has been approved as a land and resources science popularization base, Gansu Provincial science popularization Education base, and Gansu Provincial Geological Heritage Nature Reserve.
Leave Yardang National Geologic Park, and drive along the coming way back to Dunhuang. The following attraction is the Echoing Sand Mountains (Mingshashan). The sand mountain is a desert formed under the action of wind. The long yellow sand gathers here to form the sand mountain. Your last thing to do for today is the Crescent Lake. Surrounded by the Echoing Sand Mountains, Crescent Lake is a beautiful oasis with some well decorated traditional Chinese architecture, some trees and flowers and a lake that has never dried up and shapes like a crescent moon.