Originally Posted by
boxo
I was thinking about squeezing Danxia Landforms into my itinerary for 1.5 days/1 night October 14-15, between Xian and Beijing, but now I'm beginning to think it's not worth the travel time and additional cost for the limited time on the ground. The GS XIY YZY flight lands late afternoon and sunset at that time will be 6:30-ish.
I also did a Flickr search for photos taken every October 2012-2015 and the colors were dull browns and rusty reds. No rainbows.
For future reference, do any of you know if the crowd is significantly less during the week vs weekend?
That timetable sounds pretty tight. If you can depart Xi'an on the evening of the 13th, a better plan (and cheaper) would be to fly MU 2329 to Lanzhou 20:40-21:50 and spend the night there. Then morning of the 14th, take one of the 08:00-ish D high speed trains Lanzhou West-Zhangye West, arriving by noon. You'd then have time to see the in-town sights like the pagoda, Reclining Buddha and explore a bit and lunch, then have a taxi take you mid-afternoon to Danxia and back for dinner. Overnight there. 15th morning get a car and go to Mati Si if you want. Flying back from Zhangye that evening via Lanzhou to Beijing is possible though expensive. You might want to check out cost/timing of high speed to Xining and flying nonstop from there to Beijing. For instance, you could take the D2704 dep Zhangye around 17:21 arr Xining 19:25, + late Xiamen Airlines or Air China flights XNN-PEK...you'd just get into Beijing late. Earlier options are available for getting into Beijing, if you want to truncate Zhangye morning of the 15th.
As for crowds weekday vs weekend: probably doesn't matter a lot. Zhangye isn't large enough where there would be much of a local tourism contribution. Chinese tour groups would be coming from a distance and their schedule could be on any day.
As for weather conditions--Zhangye is normally dry and there is no "rainy season." October isn't in sandstorm season either. While nobody can predict the exact weather conditions for a given day, odds are that you would have clear conditions. And if the 14th is not favorable for whatever reason, there is still the morning of the 15th as a backup.
But nobody can make this call for you on the time-cost-value matrix. Certainly if you go directly from Xi'an to Beijing, it streamlines your trip planning and there is no shortage of possibilities to use your time productively in BJ. Another option would be going to Pingyao Old Town between Xi'an and Beijing. You'd need high speed tickets Xi'an-PY and preferably the same for PY-Beijing. These tickets haven't yet been released but are about to be, and they sell out very quickly. So if you want to do the Pingyao option, make up your mind asap and get a ticket order in with an agent. This fits in perfectly with a 2 day, 1 night time frame.