Wusu Langzi Lake (Tips, Photos & Map)

After simple Chinese breakfast at our hotel within Arxan National Forest Park(阿尔山森林公园), we carried our heavy pieces of luggage, cameras and tripods back to our tour bus and started a bit earlier in the morning for a long road trip to our next destination - Manzhouli.

One outstanding feature of a normal photography tour is that the tour leader will ask the driver to stop at any photogenic spots if necessary, which may not be scheduled in a travel plan. These off-the cuff stops often bring us pleasant surprises.

About after a half hour's drive, we passed by a quiet lake shrouded by early morning fog and clouds. Hemmed by the green hills in four sides, the lake looks like a beautiful fairyland - extremely quiet with mirror-like surface. The distant pine and deciduous coniferous trees have their reflections on the limpid surface of the lake. Wild ducks swam on the lake, breaking the mirror on the peaceful lake.

At the sight of the stupendous scenery, all of us on the bus shouted almost at the same time to request for an unplanned stop to snap pictures of the fairytale-like lake. Mr. Li, our bus driver pulled up over the roadside obediently and all of us got off the bus quickly carrying cameras without tripods, losing no time to take pictures of the magical lake.

White fog and clouds hovering over the mountains and the lake

The surface of the quiet lake resembles a huge mirror with multi-color reflections.

Wild ducks are cruising on the water surface, leaving a long tail of water trail.

Wild ducks are cruising on the water surfaces, leaving a long tail of water trail. — Wild ducks are cruising on the water surface, leaving a long tail of water trail.

Hemmed by the mountains on its four sides, the limpid lake reflects all the colors and lights onto its mirror-like surface.

Beautiful reflections on the mirror-like water surface.

What a quiet place! Beautiful water and fragrant grass.

In 10 minutes all the fog and clouds hovering above the lake disappeared! Back to the bus, I searched online for more information on the mysterious lake. Later I learned that the lake had a beautiful name known as "Wusu Langzi Lake" (乌苏浪子湖).

"Langzi" literally means "Return of a Prodigal Son". "Wusu" is the name of the lost son. It is a long legendary story about a young man named "Wusu", a descendent of Genghis Khan. "Wusu" in Mongolian means "water". He was given the name of Wusu (water) in a hope he could bring peace and prosperity to the grassland which had been hit by drought on successive years.

To the disappointment of the local people, Wusu didn't want to work or tend the herding on the grassland. People called him "Wusu Langzi", a prodigal son named "Wusu".

But at the age of 25 when the grassland was again hit by drought, he led a group of young men looking for underground springs. Later Wusu took adventure to bring water and even the lake onto the grassland. In memory of Wusu, the lake was named Wusu Langzi Lake.