Tangbula Hundred-Mile Gallery: A 130-kilometer-long valley in the Tianshan Mountains, free to enter but worth the detour for a special trip.
The moment I turned off the Duku Highway at the Qiaerma intersection and onto Provincial Highway S315, the scenery outside the window completely changed. The dramatic verticality of the Duku Highway vanished, replaced by a winding two-lane road leading into the valley. The Kashgar River murmured on the left, and the Tian Shan spruce trees formed a green wall on both sides of the mountainside. Driving another twenty minutes, the valley suddenly opened up, meadow after meadow stretching westward, dotted with cattle, sheep, and the occasional outline of a yurt. This was the eastern entrance to the Tangbula Hundred-Mile Gallery…
