Bingling Temple Grottoes

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Silk Roads: Chang An Tianshan Corridor, 2014); Reached By Boat Across The Liujiaxia Reservoir · Linxia, Gansu

A gorge of Buddhist caves reached only by boat, cut into red cliffs above the Yellow River about two hours west of Lanzhou. Bingling means a thousand Buddhas in Tibetan, and carving began here in the fourth century, when the gorge lay on the Silk Road crossing of the river; work continued for a thousand years, leaving nearly two hundred niches and shrines with more than seven hundred stone and clay figures. The greatest is a seated Maitreya Buddha some twenty-seven metres high, carved into the cliff in the Tang dynasty and gazing out over the water; above and around it, walkways lead past niches of slender Northern Wei figures and Tibetan-style murals added under the Ming. What makes a visit strange and memorable is the approach: since the Liujiaxia dam filled the valley in the 1960s, visitors cross the reservoir by speedboat or ferry, passing between bare ochre ridges that rise straight from turquoise water. Boats run only when conditions allow, and the caves are effectively seasonal, so plans need checking before setting out.

Bingling Temple Grottoes, Yongjing County, Linxia, Linxia, Gansu, China

Seasonal and boat-dependent: roughly 8:00-18:00 in summer and 9:00-17:00 in winter when boats run, but crossings are suspended in bad weather (check within days of travelling).

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