Say you arrived randomly in the capital city in one of the remote, lesser
travelled provinces of northern China. Let's call it Ningxia. In your guesthouse,
which is really just a large upper floor apartment painted and adorned with some
extra beds, you see a magazine with this featured inside. The only English in the
magazine or the guesthouse tells you it's called the Hill of Chinese Stones.
Well, that's how you end up in a town called Shizuishan at one of the
odder attractions in Ningxia. So what is the Hill of Chinese Stones. Is it a
mysterious ancient Chinese structure? Perhaps a ruined stretch of the nearby
Ming Dynasty Great Wall? No. This self-proclaimed popular tourist
attraction was...a park. A park that boasts thousands of stone images carvings and
even an enigmatic dilapidated gate looking as if it were the sole remnant
of a forgotten structure. And it was quite by chance that we happened upon it
when we exited the bus from Yinchuan in order to walk around the lake shore of
the town. And true to form, as is the case with many top-rated attractions in the
country, this park is exceedingly recent to the point where much of it is still
incomplete. It seems to be in a state of permanent construction. And while there
are a full complement of workers to maintain the landscaping, there was
absolutely no sign of anything being actively built or even nearing
completion. Whether or not the fault of the landscapers, much of the land was
scarcely covered in patchy unkempt grass or devoid of it entirely.
Most of the large standing stones the park was named for were in place. However,
there were a large number of them strewn about waiting to be relocated. Add to
that the random piles of bricks everywhere. Trash and broken beer bottles
surrounded the gate structure as ignored uncut rebar stuck out from its top.
And then the bees... for some inexplicable reason this site was home to thousands
and thousands of bees who seemed to be nesting in every stone. They didn't
bother us during our walk through the park, but they are everywhere. It looks as
if the Hill of Chinese Stones park will be a nice one when it's completed.
However, there are no signs that that will be anytime soon.
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