Live Your Best Lives
At the end of last year, a colleague suddenly asked me: Is there any place in the northwest that needs to be explored? How about we do a tour?
That is, we can recruit a group of experienced tourists to go on field investigations with us and provide us with guidance on route development.
I have to say, this idea is really attractive to someone like me who can travel around the Northwest Grand Loop in five minutes by closing my eyes.
Most travelers like to call the Northwest the "Great Northwest" because the word "Great" also gives the Northwest more feelings, making it one of the must-visit places for many travelers in their lifetime.
At the same time, it is this word "big" that makes the Northwest an area that cannot be fully explored. This time, we chose to explore the Northwest Mangya area.
Mangya is located in Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province, in the northwest of the Qaidam Basin, at the junction of Qinghai and southern Xinjiang. It is an important transportation hub for entering Xinjiang, Gansu and Tibet. It is the northwestern gateway city of Qinghai Province and is adjacent to Ruoqiang County, Xinjiang.
Mangya is also the material supply center for the four major uninhabited areas of Hoh Xil, Altun Mountains, Qiangtang and Lop Nur. The movies "Hokexili" and "77 Days" both use Mangya Huatugou as the destination for rescue and exploration.
The average altitude of Mangya is above 3,000 meters, and more than 90% of the land is desert Gobi, so before entering this city, you need to walk through the place on Earth that most resembles the surface of Mars.
In such a desolate place, you must be wondering why there is a town?
Its existence is due to the naturally rich mineral resources and the hard-working workers, so there are many derricks and nodding machines standing on the Gobi Desert along the way.
Mangya, surrounded by China's four major uninhabited areas, has human settlements at present, but in terms of its ecological environment, it is no different from an uninhabited area. In addition, due to the inconvenient transportation, it is not easy for outsiders to enter.
According to the current situation, there are three relatively convenient channels to enter the area, starting from Xinjiang, Gansu and Qinghai respectively, and all of them are road transportation.
If you enter from Xinjiang or Gansu, you must cross the Altun Mountains. Although there is a national highway, the road is dangerous and the winding mountain road has complicated conditions.
In comparison, entering from Qinghai is much easier. Although the journey is long, the road is straight and there are not many natural obstacles. This is also the way we chose to enter on this trip.
Not far from Mangya District is a small town called Huatugou, which is known as the "Little Hong Kong of Qinghai". This name, which sounds a bit flowery and a bit earthy, easily arouses curiosity about its origin.
It is said that when the first group of geological survey team members of New China arrived here, they were attracted by the unique landform that looked like the surface of the moon. The "Yardang landform" formed by billions of years of erosion and sedimentation is very spectacular.
The geological team found that the colors of the soil layers were different in the edge area of the basin. Looking at this vast Gobi desert, someone was inspired to write a poem and named this place "Huatugou".
Since the 1950s, four generations of oil workers from Qinghai Oilfield have worked and lived here, developing oilfields, raising children, and creating a new home.
Huatugou was born because of the oil field. Now, with the development of information technology and transportation, more and more hikers are walking into this "flower soil" with thousands of miles of folds and ups and downs, gradually bringing its beautiful scenery into the public eye.
The Aiken Spring viewed from the aerial view, the Manya Emerald Lake inlaid with silver edges, the Eboliang Ghost City under the starry sky, the Kunlun Mountains that suddenly appeared... every moment is attracting us to explore.
So we set off. The beautiful scenery exploration team set out from Xining to appreciate the frozen Qinghai Lake in winter, then followed G315 through the Boli Road, stopped to play at the frozen Yadan on the water, and finally arrived at Mangya Huatugou Town.
The thing that is most abundant in the Northwest is salt lakes. Chaka Salt Lake, Da Qaidam Lake, Qarhan Salt Lake...all of them are challenging the dominant position of salt lakes in the Northwest.
This time we came to the Mangya Emerald Lake, which is hidden in the deep and unknown world, and has a secluded but stunning beauty.
After more than ten years of careful "beauty care" by potash fertilizer workers, the color of the brine is pure and clear, like a piece of unpolished jade inlaid in the Gobi Desert.
At sunrise, the sun shines through thinner clouds, reflecting various colors and making the lake colorful.
Deep in the Aral Grassland of Haixi Prefecture, there's a geothermal spring that's been bubbling for millennia. The water gushes forth from the ground, its volume fluctuating like a pot of boiling red-braised lamb.
Looking down from the air, it looks like a phoenix spreading its wings and flying high, with a mysterious eye on the side, so it is also called the "Eye of Kunlun".
Located in Youyuangou, northeast of Huatugou Town, the clay sculptures on the cliff were formed by rain and wind erosion, creating a spectacular scene of "Thousands of Buddhas Gathering Together".
We drove up to a high place and looked around. The magnificent sight of thousands of Buddhas gathered together was in full view. The Buddhas were in various postures and expressions, some were silent, some were happy, some were enlightened, and some were sitting upright. It was a unique Buddhist event.
I had heard before that on the way to the Eboliang Devil City, there is a "Mars Camp" with a very alien feeling.
Now that we were there, we had to explore. Since it was our first time there and the signs were unclear, finding the Mars camp in the vast Gobi Desert was a challenge. Finally, we used a drone for reconnaissance and successfully confirmed its location.
Here, you can experience firsthand what it is like to live on Mars, a scene that you could only see in movies. The Mars Camp has turned the dream of living on Mars into reality.
If there are places where a destination alone is enough to make travelers make a special trip, then Oboliang must have such charm.
This place is known as "the most unlike-Earth place on Earth". Being here is like landing on the surface of Mars, and walking in it is like roaming in an alien galaxy.
This is a place untouched by most travelers, a paradise for photographers and poets, which amazes everyone who arrives for the first time.
This is the Oboliang Mars Geological Park. The total area of the yardang group reaches 21,500 square kilometers. It is one of the largest and most typical yardang landscapes in the world, with ever-changing and magnificent momentum.
If I have the chance to come again, I will definitely choose to camp here for three days and three nights, watching the sunrise and sunset, the starry sky and the Milky Way, and leaving reluctantly only after I have taken enough photos.
Mangya, the vast cliff, is a new oil city, a secret land in the vast sea, the snowy Kunlun Mountains, the emerald sky mirror... But now, it is destined to be a travel destination for only a few people. There are still too many unknowns waiting for us to explore. The vast Northwest is enough to attract us to continue to go there again and again!
