Journey to the Guge Kingdom

Entering the earth-forest of Zanda feels like stepping into a history book the wind has flipped to its final page. The crumbling loess rolls like waves toward the horizon.

In these silent folds, Guge once raised golden rooftops and sounded its horns—then, after a single night of sand and wind, withdrew from the world like a campfire going dark. 

No one can say for sure how it ended—iron hooves of war, famine along the valley, or courtly intrigue—but every answer has been gently, stubbornly covered by yellow earth.

I climb the steep path, fingertips grazing walls worn smooth by time. A blade of grass grows from a seam in the stone, like a greeting from a distant age.

In an abandoned chapel, the murals are faint—colors drunk by the years—leaving only a trace of red and gold trembling in the slanting light. Wind slips through a broken window and carries the echo of chant, as if someone were whispering an unfinished verse at my ear. Far off, the Xiangquan River lies quiet as a restrained pulse, slowly, steadily carrying the city’s shadow downstream.

Everything here has been pared down to its bones: the terraces are bone, the caves are bone, the broken steps and battlements are bone. The only loud thing is the silence itself.

The less you speak, the more Guge steps out of the dust: camel bells and caravan roads, whirling dances and night feasts; crowns and mantras, cobalt skies and gilt sutras. None of it vanished—it simply moved to another layer of time and lives there with the stars.

When night falls, I light a small butter lamp on the edge of the ruins. The flame is modest, but it throws the wall’s cracks into stark relief. In that moment I understand: disappearance is not an end—it is a completion from a higher place. The kingdom recedes, and what remains is an emptiness that can be read for ten thousand years. Because it is empty, the wind can pass, the moon can linger, and those who come after can slow their heartbeat and hear history echo inside their ribs.

If I were to write a footnote for Guge, it would be this: “You rose from the earth and return to the earth; only light travels through you and refuses to die.”

This journey teaches not conquest or discovery, but how to set reverence beneath your feet and carry lightness on your shoulders—to salute what has vanished and thank what time has weathered. 

Because we too will leave, and the wind will go on reading the unfinished pages of this city on our behalf.