Fairy Land

A few months ago, my friend Katie sent me this link along with a short message: "You could go here, if you wanted." I immediately googled Zhangye and found out that it's in Gansu province in Western China, far away from me and anything else.  It is very far off the beaten track, so far that at first it seemed impossible to reach, and my trusty Lonely Planet actually failed to mention Zhangye's Danxia park.  I bookmarked the page but forgot about it.  With a five day holiday the first week of April, I started to think about where I would like to travel and I revisited Zhangye.  I checked the train schedule and found out I could get there easily enough by a 17-hour train and then a 6-hour train.  As soon as I thought of it, I couldn't get Zhangye out of my mind, so last Thursday afternoon I found myself on a sleeper train speeding west. 
There's something thrilling and magical about long train rides.  Every time I get on a train or bus to somewhere new, no matter how long and arduous the journey might be, I feel so adventurous and excited and happy that the hours seem to melt away.  The next morning I arrived in the capital of Gansu province and caught my train to Zhangye.
First stop in Zhangye was the Danxia mountains from the link.  Luckily I ran into a German couple in the lobby of my hotel, and we split the cost of a taxi.  Once in the park, we had to ride a shuttle bus to four viewing points, where we could wander along several paths. Unfortunately, they were quite strict about that, and we weren't allowed to wander off on our own.

A self-timed Danxia Titanic moment that I ruined by looking back at the camera at just the wrong moment

 Despite reading it several times, I still can't really remember how these formations came to be.  It has something to do with mineral deposits and mysterious happenings beneath the Earth's crust. Anyway the result is spectacular and strange.  I had read that the Zhangye Danxia felt like something out of a fairy tale or even another planet. The entire park was treeless, in fact it seemed devoid of all animal and plant life other than the handful of tourists and two camels for us to take pictures with. 

Good Advice, bad English

When have I ever let a sign like this stop me?

Zhangye's Danxia park truly did feel like something out of a fairy tale or a surrealist painting, and without a doubt it was worth the 24-hours of train time.