4-Day Zhongwei and the Tengger: Shapotou, a Desert Camp and the Gaomiao Temple

Morning - the plain
The road from Yinchuan to Zhongwei runs south-west along the Yellow River, through the oldest irrigation district in China. This is the Ningxia plain: flat, bright green, cut into rectangles by canals and lined with poplars, with the desert held back on both sides. The canals are the reason the place exists. The Qin and Han both built here, the Tang expanded the system, and the Western Xia emperors irrigated the same fields.

There are two stops worth making on the way: the Bronze Gorge, where the river has cut a channel through the hills, and the Qingtongxia dam area. Your guide will judge the timing; the drive itself is only two and a half hours and there is no need to rush it.

Lunch
Lunch in Zhongwei, at a restaurant near the old town. Zhongwei is known across the province for its saozi noodles - hand-pulled noodles with a thick lamb and vegetable sauce - and for a local vinegar that is sharp enough to be used as a condiment on its own.

Afternoon - the Gaomiao
The Gaomiao is one of the strangest buildings in China and hardly anyone outside the province has heard of it. It began in the Ming dynasty as a small Buddhist shrine and grew, over three hundred years, into a single structure nearly thirty metres high in which Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist halls are stacked on top of each other, accessed by staircases that climb through the building in the dark. The plan is a compressed cross; the upper storeys are carried on a timber frame with almost no visible support; and the roofscape, seen from the courtyard, is a dense thicket of eaves, ridges and glazed figures.

You climb it. The staircases are narrow, the passages are low, and the whole thing creaks. From the top you look over the old town roofs to the Yellow River and, beyond it, the first line of dunes.

Evening
Dinner in Zhongwei. Overnight in the city, within reach of the desert for tomorrow.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

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

Morning - the dune wall
Shapotou is a bend in the Yellow River where the Tengger desert, which runs north into Inner Mongolia, comes down to the water in a wall of dunes about a hundred metres high. The river here is wide, slow and green, running between sand on one side and the black rock of the gorge on the other. It is the single most photographed place in Ningxia and it earns it.

The morning is for the desert side. You climb the dune face - on foot, or by the sand escalator the site installed, or on a chairlift - and then the sand sledding runs come down the slope at a speed that is genuinely surprising. Camel trains work the ridge line above. All activities are optional and paid on the spot; your guide will tell you honestly which ones are worth the money.

The straw grids
The reason Shapotou is famous in China has nothing to do with tourism. In the 1950s the railway from Baotou to Lanzhou was being buried by the advancing dune field several times a year, and a group of engineers and local workers solved it with straw: one-metre squares of wheat or rice straw pressed into the sand in a checkerboard, which holds the surface still long enough for grass to establish. The technique, known as the straw checkerboard, was subsequently exported to desert-control projects across northern China and Africa. You can see the grids and the vegetation they carry on the flat ground behind the dunes, and the guide will show you how they are laid.

Lunch
Lunch at a restaurant in the scenic area. Yellow River carp is the local dish; the guide orders it steamed, with a lamb dish and vegetables alongside.

Afternoon - the river
The afternoon is on the water side: the sheepskin raft, which is eight or ten inflated goatskins lashed to a frame and steered by one man with a pole, is the traditional craft of this reach of the river and still works. The gorge walk above the river is quiet and gives you the whole bend. Those who want more adrenaline can take the zip line across the river; those who do not can sit under the trees.

Evening
Dinner and overnight in Zhongwei, or - if the group prefers - in one of the desert camps beyond the dunes, where the sky after dark is the point.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Overnight at a 4-star or equivalent hotel in Zhongwei, twin share, with daily breakfast. A desert camp or desert hotel can be substituted on request.

Morning - off the road
The Tengger runs north from Zhongwei into Inner Mongolia and covers some thirty-six thousand square kilometres, which makes it the fourth-largest desert in China. It is not the empty sea of sand that the word suggests: the interior holds a chain of more than four hundred small lakes fed by groundwater, fringed with reed and grass, and it is these basins that the tracks run between.

You go in by four-wheel drive, and the driving is the experience: over the dune crests, down the slip faces, along the hard-packed corridors between them. The drivers work this ground daily and the vehicles are prepared for it. Stops are frequent, because the light changes and because there is no reason to hurry.

The lakes
The lakes come as a surprise. Some are fresh and clear, some are salt and rimmed with white; all of them carry birds and most carry a few camels. You stop at two or three of them across the day, walk the shore, and eat lunch in the shade of whatever is available.

Lunch
A packed lunch in the desert, or a simple meal at one of the lake-side guesthouses if the schedule allows. The guide carries water and shade for the group.

Afternoon and evening - the camp
You reach the camp in the late afternoon, in time to climb a dune and watch the sun go down across the sand. Dinner is at the camp - lamb, noodles, and whatever the camp kitchen is doing that day - and after it the lights go off. Zhongwei has one of the darkest skies in eastern China, and on a clear night the Milky Way is a band you can see the structure in. Your guide knows the constellations visible at this latitude and will point out what is up.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Overnight in a desert camp or desert hotel in the Tengger, twin share. Camps here range from tented rooms with private bathrooms to simple yurts; the grade is confirmed at the time of booking.

Morning - at leisure
The morning is free. If the flight is late and the group wants one more thing, the old town and the Gaomiao are ten minutes away and easily fitted in before the transfer.

Transfer out
Zhongwei Shapotou Airport is small, nine kilometres from the centre, and serves a handful of domestic routes; allow twenty minutes and check in early, because the terminal is not built for volume. Zhongwei South railway station, on the Yinchuan-Lanzhou high-speed line, is twenty-five minutes from the centre, with trains to Yinchuan in about an hour and a half and to Lanzhou in about three.

Alternative - return to Yinchuan
If your onward flight leaves from Yinchuan Hedong, the drive back takes about two and a half hours and can be timed to your departure; the guide will build the morning around it, with a stop on the way if there is time.

Meals
Breakfast

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