The city of Tianshui was for centuries an important
town on the Silk Road, being the first stop in Gansu
for travelers and merchants to various parts of northwestern
China and beyond. It was many centuries before this,
however, that the town found its fame, deemed as the
birthplace of the legendary emperor Fuxi. Today throngs
of people still flock to the Fuxi Temple, in the western
section of the city, to commemorate him.
Recent years have witnessed
the rapid industrialisation of the city, that has
rid it of much of its character, and expanded its
size enormously. It is much due to these facts that
people visiting Tianshui come mainly for the out of
city attractions. Your choice of location in town
probably should be influenced more by transport access
to and from here, than for any other reason.
The city is now rather
strangely divided, by 20 kilometers, into two sections:
the slightly more up-market-eastern section, Qincheng,
and the uglier western section of Beidao. Qincheng
is the main area of the city, has the best hotels,
all of the local sights and is where you will arrive
if you are travelling here by bus. Beidao, however,
has two things going for it: it is where you will
arrive if you are travelling to the city by train,
and it is the best area for getting to Tianshui's
best attraction by far, the Maijishan Grottoes.
The Maji Mountain (Wheat-stack
Mountain) is the redeeming saviour for Tianshui, a
beautifully serene area of wooded slopes, ancient
Buddhist grottoes, large statues and many areas for
pleasant hiking. The Mountain is situated some 30
kilometers on a winding road southeast from the town,
and is among the four largest Buddhist cave complexes
in China with an existing total of a stunning 194
grottoes.
infotmation