5 Days in Bayannur

The Hetao culture museum frames the irrigation district inscribed on the heritage list in 2019; the riverside park runs the Yellow River's northern bank. Market-street dinner in Linhe.

1. bayannur hetao culture museum
2. bayannur yellow river wetland park

About 300 sq km of reed banks and open water with 260-plus recorded bird species; boats from the piers, fish meals in the lakeside villages of Urad Front Banner.

1. bayannur ulansuhai lake

North along the front range, where Xiaoshetai keeps stone-built stretches of the Qin wall around 2,200 years old, and the Yinshan gullies hold petroglyph panels — hunting scenes, herds and sun marks — recorded by the tens of thousands since the 1970s surveys.

1. bayannur xiaoshetai great wall
2. bayannur yinshan petroglyphs

The Sanshenggong sluice of 1959-1961 still turns river water onto over ten million mu of fields; deeper into the hills, the Jilu fort's Han-dynasty stone walls — state-protected since 2001 — guard an old pass route.

1. bayannur sanshenggong headworks
2. bayannur jilu fort

A slow morning at the desert-edge lake among the Ulan Buh dunes, Dengkou melons in season from July to August, then the train or flight onward from Linhe.

1. bayannur nalin lake