3-Day Yinchuan: Tombs & Museum

Overview

Yinchuan is a small capital with an unusual history, and this three-day programme is built around the two things that make it unusual. The first is the Western Xia: a Tangut state that ruled this corner of the map from 1038 until the Mongols destroyed it in 1227, leaving a script nobody could read until the twentieth century and a burial ground of earth-coloured tombs at the foot of the Helan Mountains. The second is the fact that this is Hui country — a third of the city is Muslim, the older streets smell of cumin and lamb, and the mosques are a normal part of the skyline rather than a curiosity.

Day one is arrival and the museum, which is the right order: you see the objects before you see the sites. Day two is the tombs and their own museum, three hours on the gravel plain with the Helan range behind you. Day three is the pagoda and the old town before the transfer out. There is no long driving in this itinerary — the furthest transfer is thirty-five kilometres — and it works as the front half of a longer Ningxia trip or as a stand-alone city break.

Two practical points. The tombs are exposed and there is almost no shade, so a hat and water matter more than they sound. And the pagoda stairs are steep and narrow inside the brick core; if anyone in the party is unsteady on stairs we walk the temple courtyard instead and skip the climb.

Highlights

The Western Xia Imperial Tombs: nine mausoleums and some 250 lesser tombs on the gravel fan
The site museum, where the Tangut script is laid out beside its Chinese translation
Ningxia Museum, free with a booked slot, and the best single room of Xixia porcelain in China
Haibao Pagoda, a square brick tower of nine storeys rebuilt after the 1739 earthquake
Yinchuan itself: a Hui-majority city where the call to prayer and the mall coexist
Private vehicle, driver and English-speaking guide throughout

Itinerary

Day 1Yinchuan: Arrival, the Ningxia Museum and Haibao Pagoda

Morning - arrival
Yinchuan sits on the flat plain between the Helan Mountains and the Yellow River, at about 1,100 metres, and it is the greenest city for a thousand kilometres in any direction. That is not a natural accident: the plain is irrigated by a canal system that was dug under the Han dynasty and has been maintained, on and off, for two thousand years. Your guide meets you at the airport or the railway station and drives you into the city.

The Ningxia Museum
The provincial museum is the right place to start, because it explains what you are about to look at. The collection runs from the Palaeolithic sites of Shuidonggou through the Tang and Song into the Western Xia - the Tangut kingdom that ruled here from 1038 until the Mongols extinguished it in 1227 - and out along the Silk Road. The Western Xia galleries hold Buddhist sutras, Tangut script, seals, ceramics and the stonework recovered from the imperial tombs, and there is a fine collection of the carved stone steles that the Tangut left behind. Admission is free and pre-booking is required; your guide handles it.

Lunch
Ningxia cooking is Hui cooking: lamb above all, noodles, and a restrained hand with chilli. Your guide orders hand-grabbed mutton, a bowl of lamb soup with pulled noodles, and a plate of the local cold vegetable dishes. A mild table is arranged alongside.

Afternoon - Haibao Pagoda
North of the old city, in a walled courtyard of its own, stands the Haibao Pagoda - a square brick tower of eleven storeys, about fifty-four metres tall, tapering slightly as it rises, with arched niches on each face and no eaves at all. Its present form is a Qing reconstruction of a much older building, traditionally dated to the fifth century, and it is one of the oldest structures standing in the city. The climb to the top platform is steep and narrow and gives you the whole of Yinchuan: the plain, the canals, the mountains closing the western horizon.

Evening
Dinner at a local restaurant. If you have the energy, the guide can walk you through the drum tower area afterwards, which is livelier after dark than it looks by day.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Overnight at a 4-star or equivalent hotel in Yinchuan, twin share, with daily breakfast.

Transport: Yinchuan Hedong International Airport or Yinchuan railway station (private vehicle, about 40 minutes)

Meals: Lunch, Dinner

Day 2The Western Xia Imperial Tombs and the Site Museum

Morning - the tomb field
Thirty-five kilometres west of the city, where the plain runs into the foot of the Helan Mountains, is a burial ground of fifty-odd square kilometres holding nine imperial tombs and more than two hundred subsidiary burials. The Western Xia was a Tangut state that held this ground, together with much of modern Gansu and northern Shaanxi, from 1038 to 1227, and it produced its own script, its own coinage and a Buddhist culture that looked west to Tibet as much as east to the Song.

What survives is largely earth: rammed walls, the octagonal cores of the burial mounds, and the long spirit roads running toward the mountains. Seen from a distance the mounds read as eroded pyramids, which is where the tourist name comes from. The setting does most of the work - the tombs face east across the plain with the mountain wall behind them, and the light in the late afternoon turns the whole field amber.

The site museum
The museum at the entrance is the other half of the visit, and it is a good one: Tangut script, Buddhist printing, armour, the gilt bronze ox and the stone horses that came out of the tombs, and a reconstruction of the burial chambers. A short film sets out what is known and - more interestingly - what is not. No Tangut royal tomb has been opened intact, and the architecture of the mounds has never been satisfactorily explained.

Lunch
Lunch at a farmhouse restaurant near the site, where the lamb comes from the surrounding villages and the vegetables are grown against the mountain. Mild options and vegetarian dishes are arranged in advance.

Afternoon
After the museum, the vehicle takes you along the foot of the mountains to the twin tombs at the northern end of the field, where the two mounds stand close together and the crowds do not reach. On the way back, if the group wants it, the guide can stop at a winery on the eastern foothills - this is the same strip of gravel and sunshine that produces most of China's best red wine - for a tasting before dinner.

Evening
Dinner in Yinchuan.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Overnight at a 4-star or equivalent hotel in Yinchuan, twin share, with daily breakfast.

Transport: Yinchuan - the Western Xia tombs - Yinchuan (private vehicle, about 40 minutes each way)

Meals: Lunch, Dinner

Day 3Yinchuan: Departure to Hedong Airport or the Railway Station

Morning - at leisure
The morning is left free. Depending on the departure time there is room for a last walk in the old city, for the Ningxia Museum if you did not see it on the first day, or simply for a slow breakfast and re-packing. Your guide confirms the departure time the evening before and builds the morning around it.

Transfer out
Hedong International Airport lies about twenty kilometres south-east of the city, on the far side of the Yellow River; allow forty minutes. Yinchuan railway station is on the western edge of the city, twenty minutes from the centre, and runs high-speed services to Xi'an, Lanzhou and Beijing. A vehicle and driver take you and your luggage straight to the terminal, and the guide walks you in as far as the entry check.

Onward
If your flight leaves late, a half-day of sightseeing can be added before the transfer - the Western Xia tombs or the Helan Mountain rock art are both close to the airport road - and a day room can be kept at the hotel on request.

Meals
Breakfast

Accommodation
No hotel night included - onward flight or train. A further night in Yinchuan can be added on request.

Transport: Yinchuan hotel - Hedong Airport (about 40 minutes) or Yinchuan railway station (about 20 minutes)

Meals: Breakfast

Booking Price

Group Size	Adult(Age:8-80) Price/p.p	Child(Age:4-7) Price/p.p	Infant(Age:0-3) Price/p.p
2 PAX	from $995	/	/
4 PAX	from $670	/	/
6 PAX	from $568	/	/
8 PAX	from $514	/	/
10 PAX	from $454	/	/
20 PAX	from $430	/	/
30 PAX	from $386	/	/

Includes

Accommodation for 2 nights at a 4-star or equivalent hotel, twin share, with daily breakfast
Meals as listed in the daily itinerary (daily breakfast, plus the lunches and dinners listed in the daily programme)
Private air-conditioned vehicle with professional driver throughout
English-speaking local guide (Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian or Japanese on request)
All entrance fees for the sites listed, including shuttle buses, eco-buses and cable cars where the site requires them
Local handling and coordination service throughout the programme
Bottled water (2 bottles per person per day) and audio headsets where group size requires them
Travel accident insurance for the duration of the tour

Excludes

International air tickets and any domestic flights not listed in the itinerary
China visa or visa-free entry documentation fees
Meals not specified in the daily itinerary and all beverages/alcohol
Tips for guides, drivers and hotel staff (suggested USD 8-12 per person per day)
Personal expenses: laundry, telephone, minibar, shopping
Optional activities and any item not listed under Price Includes
Single-room supplement if a traveller requires a room alone
Haibao Pagoda admission (approx. CNY 20-30 per person, paid on site; not included in the tour price)
Western Xia Tomb shuttle within the site, if taken (paid on site)

Trip Notes

Yinchuan is a small capital with an unusual history, and this three-day programme is built around the two things that make it unusual. The first is the Western Xia: a Tangut state that ruled this corner of the map from 1038 until the Mongols destroyed it in 1227, leaving a script nobody could read until the twentieth century and a burial ground of earth-coloured tombs at the foot of the Helan Mountains. The second is that this is Hui country, where a third of the city is Muslim and the older streets smell of cumin and baking bread.

How long does the Western Xia tomb site actually need?

Two and a half to three hours, including the site museum. The mausoleums are spread across roughly fifty square kilometres of gravel fan, so you drive between the main tomb and the museum rather than walk. The walking at each stop is short but entirely unshaded, and late afternoon gives the best light on the earth walls.

Is the Ningxia Museum worth a stop, or is it filler?

It is the best single introduction to the region, and it is free. The Xixia gallery holds porcelain, Buddhist bronzes and stone steles carrying the Tangut script, and the labels put Tangut characters beside their Chinese equivalents, the only place most visitors ever see the two scripts together. Allow ninety minutes.

Can we climb Haibao Pagoda?

Yes, though the stair runs inside the brick core. It is steep, narrow and lit only by small openings, and it is nine storeys up. The reward is a view across the old city roofscape rather than an open panorama. Anyone with knee or heart trouble should stay in the courtyard, which is the prettier half anyway.

Is three days enough for Yinchuan?

Enough for the city and the Helan Mountain foothills, which is what this route covers. It is not enough for Zhongwei and the Tengger, or for the southern caves at Xumishan; each of those needs two or three further days, and both can be added to this programme.

What is the food like in Yinchuan?

Hui cooking, and mild by Chinese standards. Lamb dominates, with hand-pulled wheat noodles, flatbreads, dairy and tomatoes. A third of the city is Muslim, so the Hui restaurants are the reliable places to eat, and the breakfast noodle shops are worth getting up for.

Can we reach the Helan Mountain rock art from the city?

Yes, in roughly an hour, and it is the natural companion to the tombs. The petroglyphs are pecked into dark varnished stone in a side gorge on the mountain’s eastern flank, and the small site museum beside them explains how the images are dated.

Does visa-free entry work at Yinchuan airport?

Yes. Yinchuan Hedong International Airport is among the 65 designated ports listed by the National Immigration Administration for the 240-hour transit exemption. Nationals of the 50 countries on China’s unilateral visa-free list do not need a visa at all and may stay up to 30 days.

What should we do with the third afternoon?

The old town and the market. The lanes around the Nanquan Mosque hold a produce market that is worth an hour, the museum district has parks with shade, and there are tea houses where nobody will hurry you. The guide will mark a short walk on a map.

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3-Day Yinchuan: Western Xia Tombs, the Ningxia Museum and Haibao Pagoda