Private Day Tour: Horse Hoof Temple Grottoes and Zhangye Danxia Landform

A wonderful all-day tour that combined Buddhist history with an experience of the two mountain ranges that flank Zhangye and create the Silk Road Hexi-corridor, interspersed by lunch at a local agricultural village restaurant. We were driven from site to site in a comfortable six seat car by a very knowledgable local chap while Steven, our guide, enlightened us with his treasure-trove of information about the Zhangye area and history. First we visited the 1500 year old Tibetan Buddhist Horse Hoof Temple Grottoes carved into the towering Qilian (sky) mountains and then the Zhangye Danxia landform or Rainbow Mountains. We had great fun scrambling up stairs and ducking through ancient passageways en route to various caves - all of which played host to ornate Buddha statues and shrines. Steven provided this private tour of the Temple’s grottoes with expert commentary on the finer details of the caves together with a wider explanation of the culture that created them. At the local restaurant we had tasty Cuo Yuzi noodles, a local Zhangye speciality, with well cooked quality fresh dishes of a diverse range, from meat to vegetarian-friendly and with spicy and milder dishes being available. The Rainbow Mountains were the other side of Zhangye and on arrival required a transfer to a national park hop on hop off coach that stopped at four points to allow us to walk up to the platforms where we had spectacular views of the uniquely coloured rock formations. A really worthwhile day, we whole-heartedly recommend Stephen and Silk Road Angel Tours.

We enjoyed the tours of Horse Hoof Grottoes and Danxia Landform tremendously with Steven as the guide. Steven speaks excellent English for he has spent several months in the USA to enrich his English speaking skill. He has been a tour guide for many years and owes a tour company himself. He came with an excellent car and a driver who also contributed some historical knowledge of these two places. Steven took us to a very nice regional cuisine restaurant for lunch at Horse Hoof Grottoes area. Thanks a lot Steven for such a enjoyable trip.