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X338+7CV, Gaochang District, Turpan, Xinjiang, China, 838005
Very interesting place, the area itself is so big, at least need 2-3 hours to explore the whole city. There is 2 stops from the entrance, and you have to ride a car. First is 古村, the main attraction is 古城.
It is a big Ancient City, the Visitor Center located at the entrance has all the interesting photos ,videos and displays on the history of this City. Next we took about 20 mins bus ride, arriving at the Ancient City Ruins entrance . There is a big signboard illustrating the strategic local on all the buildings in this Ancient City, surrounded by 2 rivers. Walking along the road , we could see ancient walls, private residences of officials Buddhist temples ,pagodas and cemeteries. It took us around 2 hours to walk through the ruins of this stunning site full of forgotten history with lots of photographic opportunities. The architecture is quite interesting , looks like the inhabitants dug into the mud to create their dwellings and probably slowly eroded by the weather, some of carved out rocks have looks like some animal formations. Nevertheless the site is still a well preserved ancient city , it is better to have a local guide who could readily explain whatever abandoned ruins you are looking at !!
Well preserved ruins of an important town along the silk road You have to use your imagination to envisage the ancient town vibrancy during the olden days when traders from east and west passed thru this town
Fantastic. Unlike many "historic sites" in the area, I don't believe this is a reconstruction or mockup, as some reviewers have claimed. This is the real deal - it wouldn't be on the UNESCO world heritage list otherwise. It isn't in a good condition, but that is due to its age of more than 2000 years rather than a lack of preservation efforts. In fact, the tourist infrastructure there strikes a good balance between allowing people to see the majority of the ruins and minimising erosion. Make sure to get the ancient city ticket for 70 yuan rather than the ancient village (which is a mockup and not worth the extra 35 yuan).









