Walking the Wall

The view from Mati village

Of all the places in China we could have been stuck waiting for new backpacks, the town of Zhangye must be one of the nicest. It has pedestrian malls and outdoor cafes, a good selection of bars, and a relaxed atmosphere. Zhangye was also an important stopping point on the Silk Road (Marco Polo spent a year here), and it has a number of significant historical attractions.

The most spectacular of these is the Matisi Scenic Area, about 70 kilometres south of town. Within just a few square kilometres, Matisi combines stunning mountain scenery with temple complexes in several distinctive styles, a reflection of the cultural diversity of this part of China.

Yugur minority dancers buying beer before the performance

We headed out to Matisi late in the morning after sorting some of our equipment business and arrived in the early afternoon, just in time for a quick hike. Our first stop was at Shengguo, a Tibetan Buddhist temple built in the 1920s.

Stupas and prayer flags just outside the temple

The temple itself is undergoing restoration, but just inside the temple entrance you can see modern paintings of stories from the Buddha’s life. The paintings are extraordinarily detailed and complex, and include images ranging from tranquil garden settings to bloody battlefield scenes. Naturally, we gravitated toward the violence.

Charge!

The most ancient and most historically important of the temple complexes at the Scenic Area are the Matisi cave temples. These temples, like those at Dunhuang, were carved in the early days of Buddhism’s spread into China. However, unlike at Dunhuang, not only are there temples within the caves at Matisi, there are also elaborate carvings directly on the cliff’s face.

The Matisi cave temples

Carvings like these can be found all around the Matisi area

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to go inside as the caves’ interiors were closed for restoration, but from the outside we did get to see and even photograph some “thousand-buddha” murals, which we were unable to do at Dunhuang.

Though these murals are degraded, it is still possible to see the small variations in pose in each of the images (click for a better view)

By 3 o’clock, afternoon thunderclouds were gathering, so we decided to take a short walk through the forest before calling it a day. As luck would have it, we ran across Wang Shi Hua and his friends and family as they were having a picnic, with just enough time to share a beer before the downpour began.

Mr Wang (sporting the alpine hat), family and friends

We visited the last of the temple complexes, Thousand-Buddha Temple, as we were leaving the following day. Although they are of approximately the same age as the Matisi cave temples, they are decorated in a more contemporary Chinese style and are busy, active places of worship.

The Thousand-Buddha Temple caves

Looking across the cliff from inside one of the eight caves