炳灵寺石窟

炳灵寺石窟以下寺最为壮观，西秦建都临夏期间，国王御驾亲临石窟，挥毫题词，真迹尚存于岩壁之上。石窟悬崖上有石刻大佛像一尊；悬崖旁边矗立着姊妹峰。可惜大佛正在维修，无法一睹尊严。

炳灵寺石窟。。。手脚并用的爬了很陡的栈道。。。太壮观！！！Smart_张

炳灵寺石窟旁的丹霞地貌，比大峡谷的毫不逊色。只是没有直升机而已，没有充分开发，更加原汁原味。

新疆#卡达里克#遗址所出壁画残部，壁画残存莲座部分并一沙门残部。沙门身着右袒式僧衣，跪于莲座之下，一手持花，一手执炉，以作供养。沙门所执鹊尾炉源出印度，中原地区及北朝石窟造像中常见，扬之水女史曾为最早一例为炳灵寺石窟第9窟十六国时期西秦壁画。

炳灵寺石窟，藏传佛教十万弥勒的栖居之地。虽不及麦积山石窟的规模和名气，却更显惟妙惟肖的生动细腻。在这般空灵的丹霞山谷之中，按下一朵浓云，就会有一位菩萨走进人间吧。（整理照片：#5对吃货伉俪的闲游#）

炳灵寺石窟，修刘家峡水库时，几个窟就永远沉到水底了。大卧佛也被搬了家。功过无法知道。

炳灵寺石窟，隐于刘家峡水库，丝绸之路的佛事重地，石雕精湛。门票不便宜，就是不让拍照，保安全程陪同，警觉而又凶悍。好不容易有个大佛可以拍照，如图。

刘家峡就是坐个船，石窟就算了，坑人啊，门票五十，进去后，走路十分钟就能转一圈出来了，就一个大点的佛像，出来就一个感觉，不值

Tourist used to get the grottoes from Lanzhou,but I did it from Linxia, that is a nice place to sleep, cheap, nice people and good food. Is posible to go by public transport to Liujiaxia Reservoir, and once in the port, I took a boat, no more than 15 min. The place is very beautiful, and not crowded at all. It´s not easy to get there from Linxia but is possible, is really worthy

The grottoes are small and so are the well-preserved, more than a thousand years old carvings they are holding, except for a gigant and much newer statue of Buddha, right in the middle. There are more than 500 carvings of various Buddhist characters, some of them with much of the original color, in about 200 niches - which I think it's a better description than grottoes. What is absolutely spectacular is the location of all these, almost at the entrance of a narrow canyon, with the Yellow River on the right and amazing towering rocks in the background. Very few visitors around and no restrictions to taking photos. A little more than two hours drive from Lanzhou, mostly through an area with many architecturally interesting and nice looking mosques, followed by an half an hour boat ride.Once you get out of the boat there are a few stalls where you could grab something to eat or drink. A very pleasant day trip from Lanzhou.

Bingling Si is not easy to get to - a couple of hours drive, plus a short boat trip, but worth the effort. The major attraction is the huge Buddha carved into the side of the valley (somewhat over-enthusiastically restored): the other grottoes are relatively small. However the location, among soaring rock pillars, is spectacular. It's also worth making a short trip to the small temple at the head of the valley, tended by the 8th incarnation of the original temple founder!

You can totally skip a day in Lanzhou if you are planning on visiting this site! It takes 2 hours to drive to Liujiaxia and another 1 hour boating on the water reservoir. Boat trip on the reservoir has a deja vu with it on the West Lake in Hangzhou (see my photos), only vaster and bleaker. The grottoes, which may not be the best ones in China, are of unique style and very authentic. It seems like the artists are just on their lunch break and will be back to finish up the art later. Some small Buddha figures are very adorable, just like a barbie doll.

Maybe not as impressive as other grottoes in China, however these grottoes are hidden in a very nice scenery making this trip well worth. Made the trip at the end of October 2013. I took the bus from Lanzhou towards Liujiaxia from West Bus Station. The ride took nearly two hours cause the bus driver kept looking for more people to get on the bus. I told the driver i would like to go to Bing Ling Grottoes and he dropped me a few hundred meters before the docks at a small travel office. Eventually i got my trip to the grottoes booked there (beware: No English spoken there, if you don't speak any chinese, this might be a bit of a problem there). I joined three chinese guys and we first drove more than 30 minutes in a private car along the reservoir to a small dock where we changed to a small speedboat. We were then driven to a first site, that we skipped (not sure what it was but it looked not too interesting), and continued to the grottoes (maybe 30 minutes boatride in total), very scenic boatride. We got nearly 2 hours for sight seeing there (and contrary to the previous report here we could take pictures, no problem at all). It's not big, but we joined another group with a guide which gave insightful information as there's not much explanation written about the grottoes. Finally we went back to the same dock by boat where our driver was waiting. He drove us back and also gave us a city tour of Liujiaxia and the water dam. Boat + car ride was 150 RMB for each of us.

We took bus ride for about one and half hours to get to Yongjing county. this is a small town located by the side of the Yellow River. one of the biggest hydro power station is located here.as it was even the biggest before the one on the Yangtze river was built. we had a simple lunch and moved on to the dock where there were many small speed boat ready to take visitors. The boat ride was about 40 to 50 minute to reach the BingLing temple. this part of the Yellow River is really beautiful that the water is not yellow at all, but limpid and clear. there were huge mountains and rocks standing high along the river side. all of them are just rocky with no tress or plantations. This scenery is reputed as the Three Gorges of the Yellow River.When we got off the speed boat, there is a walk for about five minute to the mouth of the valley. this is just the entrance of the bingling temple. make sure that you use the toilet here and this would be the only cleanest one in this complex. The valley is a very long narrow stretch into the mountains. along the way, there are hundreds of small caves or shrines carved into the rocks. the history of these carvings can be traced back to more than one thousand year ago. and some of them still remain more or less colored. The tour in this valley is like taking a big U turn and it is a one way tour. Along the way, visitors could only see everything, but taking picture is NOT ALLOWED AT ALL, there are plenty of security guards petrol along the way making sure that nobody is taking photos or touching these ancient artifacts. because many of these statues and shrines remain just exposed without any fence or protection. Coming to the Bingling temple is more than just a visit to the beautiful Buddhist art, but also the scenery along the way in the valley or on the speed boat ride is just REWARDING. there are few options for visitors who do silk road tours in this region.1: After the visit of Bingling temple, people may take the ferry boat service to LinXia County and drive to XiaHe Tibetan Autonomous County.2: Visitors may just return back to Lanzhou and continue their onward journey.

This was my long day trip from lanzhou which included a bus ride and then taking a speedboat to get to the site. The name of this location is Bingling thousand buddha caves and I don't know about whether there are actually ten thousand buddhas, but there are a number of impressive carvings made into the cliffside. You are going to be limited by the speedboat driver as to the amount of time you get to spend at the site.