Kina

Synonymous with the Silk Road, the slender province of Gansu (甘肃, Gānsù) flows east to west along the Hexi Corridor, the gap through which goods and ideas once streamed between China and Central Asia. The constant flow of commerce left Buddhist statues, beacon towers, forts, chunks of the Great Wall and ancient trading towns in its wake. Gansu offers an entrancingly rich cultural and geographic diversity. Historians immerse themselves in Silk Road lore, art aficionados swoon before the wealth of Buddhist paintings and sculptures, while adventurers hike through desert rockland, ascend sand dunes and tread along high-mountain paths well worn by Tibetan nomads. The ethnic diversity is equally astonishing: throughout the province, the local Hui Muslims act as though the Silk Road lives on; in Xiahe and Langmusi a pronounced Tibetan disposition holds sway, while other minority groups such as the Bao’an and Dongxiang join in the colourful minority patchwork.

I sommar får Sverige för första gången en direktlinje till Shanghai i Kina. Det är flygbolaget China Eastern som kommer att flyga till staden från Arlanda fyra gånger i veckan.

The fertile Dunhuang (敦煌, Dūnhuáng) oasis has for millennia been a refuge for weary Silk Road travelers. Most visitors stayed long enough only to swap a camel; but some stayed, building the forts, towers and cave temples that are scattered over the surrounding area. These sites, along with some dwarfing sand dunes and desertscapes, make Dunhuang a magnificent place to visit.

Shaanxi (陕西; Shǎnxī) is where it all began for China. As the heartland of the Qin dynasty (秦朝), whose warrior emperor united much of China for the first time, Shaanxi was the cradle of Chinese civilisation and the fountainhead of Han culture. Xi'an marked the beginning and end of the Silk Road and was a buzzing capital long before anyone knew of Beijing and its Forbidden City.

An off-limits border area for more than 60 years, Sha Tau Kok Village (沙頭角), which lies 11km northeast of Fanling, was sealed off from the rest of Hong Kong in 1951 following the communist takeover of China. While access to the border town itself is still restricted to local residents, the 400 hectares of land – and the patchwork of villages that it contains – to the west and southwest have been partially open since 2012.

As the birthplace of Mao Zedong, Communist Party cadres might wax lyrical about the sacred standing of Hunan (湖南; Húnán) in the annals of Chinese history, but it's the province's dramatic scenery that is the real draw. A magnificent landscape of isolated mountain ranges and jagged peaks envelops more than 80% of the province. The most astonishing example is found at the phantasmagorical Zhangjiajie, one of China's most surreal national parks. Here, as in other parts of the province, geological marvels thrust up majestically from green vales fed by tributaries in the fertile Yangzi River basin.

Shangri-la (香格里拉, Xiānggélǐlā), formerly known as Zhongdian (中甸, Zhōngdiàn) and sometimes 'Gyalthang' in Tibetan, is where you really start to breathe in the Tibetan world – if you can breathe at all, given the altitude.

Yellow Mountain, Kina – så vackert att varje försök att fotografera blir lite av ett fiasko.

North of Myanmar and Laos, Xishuangbanna (西双版纳, Xīshuāngbǎnnà) is the Chinese approximation of the original Thai name of Sip Sawng Panna (12 Rice-Growing Districts). Better known as Bǎnnà, the area has become China’s mini-Thailand, attracting tourists looking for sunshine, water-splashing festivals and jungle treks. Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, as it is known officially, is subdivided into the three counties of Jinghong, Menghai and Mengla.

Visst kan man längta ut i världen för att se nya saker – men Kinas nya turistattraktion är kanske inget för den som är rädd för höjder eller tvivlar på karusellers säkerhet. Då njuter man nog inte!