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Liancheng and the Datong He Valley
The Datong He valley is a strange affair, generally becoming narrower and narrower as it heads towards the Huangshui at Honggu. It starts off in the Qilianshan and runs eastwards, forming the southern boundary of the high Qilianshan mountains - often as a wide valley - before starting to narrow dramatically as it curves south in its last 100km. Liancheng, Tulugou and Yaojie are all in the last 30km of the 500km length of the river. The last stretch of the Datong runs for some kilometres through the Xiangtang Gorge. The scenery would originally have been spectacular here, but now the presence of the road, the railway, several dams, and power lines, phone lines and the air pollution have all contrived to make the whole gorge seem somewhat grubby.
The 100km north of Liancheng was the summer 'home country' of legendary plant collector Reginald Farrer. Information about Farrer in this area is in a Travelogue in my Matisi pages.
The lower Datong He valley is very heavily industrialised, with a huge cement plant, a steel mill, several very large coal mines, an aluminium smelter and a ferro-alloy plant. The reason is that this tight, narrow valley is well away from the borders of China and in the 1960s this was considered important for locating strategic industries, and given the proximity of big reserves of coal, it seemed to make sense for the factories to be set up locally. The sad reality is that the air pollution in the valley is severe and the waste disposal situation is desperate.
The upside of this, for many, is that steam trains still run on the railway line up the valley from Honggu on the Xining-Lanzhou railway at the end of the Datong He up to the ferro-alloy plant at Liancheng, with depots at Yaojie and a smaller one by the station at Liancheng. The area sees fairly regular visitors for this reason. However, some abuse by some visitors has led to the authorities at the coal mine depot being unfriendly to others unless arrangements are made in advance.
[Photos to follow]
