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Go south

To get a real taste of Ningxia, the awesome desert tour is only part of the adventure. Leaving behind the modern Yinchuan, I headed deep south to Guyuan, which is famous for mountains, grottoes, gorges and Danxia landforms.

My first stop in Guyuan, one-hour flight from Yinchuan, was Xumi Grottoes at the eastern foot of Mt Xumi, 55km northwest of the city.

This is a gateway on the ancient Silk Road and part of the magnificent Liupan Mountains. The grotto carving began in the late Northern Wei Kingdom (AD 386-534).

Twenty-two grottoes are well preserved, with a rich collection of high-quality carvings of the Northern Wei, the Northern Zhou (AD 557-551), the Sui (AD 581-518) and the Tang (AD 618-907) dynasties.

This area used to be a key passage on the Silk Road between the East and the West and a thoroughfare for exchanges between the Han Chinese and minority ethnic groups.

The most celebrated place of interest in the mountain is the Giant Sitting Buddha Maitreya in Grotto No. 2. The Maitreya measures 26 meters high, with its ears the length of two adults put together. The Buddha with a benign look is considered a representative masterpiece of the grotto on the mountain.

Grotto No. 5 is the biggest of its kind. Made of a hollowed-out mound, it is called the "Haloes of Xumi" and contains seven well-preserved Buddhist statues, each 6 meters in height, and seven Bodhisattva statues. These figures look mysterious and fascinating under a few rays of light that enter the grotto through a hold in the roof of the mound.

Due to devastation by earthquakes and windstorms in its 1,400-year history, half of the grotto was caved-in, but it has recently been restored.

Another an hour from the grottoes, I reached my last but arguably the most impressive stop in the south - Yanzhi Canyon. In Chinese, yanzhi means rouge, and legend has it that a fairy came down from heaven one day and washed her faced in the Huanghua River (running through the canyon). And then rouge on her face dyed the river red.