5 Days in Zhongwei

Some 20 kilometres west of town, the dunes drop straight to the Yellow River — sand-slide down, sheepskin raft back, zipline across. Since the 1950s, straw checkerboards have held the sand off the 1958 Baotou-Lanzhou railway.

1. zhongwei shapotou

Gaomiao stacks its halls up a single platform — Ming-era origins, largely rebuilt in the 1940s — and the drum tower holds the crossroads; the night-market street closes the day.

1. zhongwei gaomiao
2. zhongwei drum tower

The dead-straight stretch through dune country that photographers call China's Route 66, then the river village and its old pear orchards — April blossom is the payoff. About 60 kilometres round trip.

1. zhongwei route 66 road
2. zhongwei beichangtan village

Half an hour beyond Shapotou, the grassland and lakes of Tonghu sit across the regional line in Alxa Left Banner, Inner Mongolia — labelled honestly here as an edge-of-province day. Stay for a desert-camp sunset and a sky that empties into stars.

1. zhongwei tonghu grassland
2. zhongwei tengger desert camp

An honest county day about an hour east — Zhongning grows the wolfberries that carry its name nationwide; the goji museum and berry fields frame a slow morning before the HSR from Zhongwei South.

1. zhongwei zhongning goji museum