Lanzhou
I have not seen another foreigner for three days now while staying in Lanzhou. A very strange feeling, as nearly everybody on the street looks at me with interest and and the kids often say: "Look, a laowai!"
Lanzhou itself is more interesting than I thought it would be. Have basically been wandering the streets. There are a lot of small street markets and food stalls. No tourists means that most street vendors won't try and sell you things - something very soothing after Xi'an. Lanzhou feels a little backward, everything seems about 15 years behind Beijing. The clothes people wear, the buildings, the cars, the restaurants, just everything. I find this quite a nice contrast to fast paced Beijing. It feels more real. And although Lanzhou is supposed to be China's most polluted city, I have actually seen a blue sky here every day! Unlike Beijing!
I'm staying in a cheap hotel near the train station - couldn't find a hostel anywhere. And the last two nights I got a phone call with a women offering me a "massagy". It took me a while to realise she meant "massage". I declined.
Yesterday I did an excursion to the Binglingsi grottoes - Binglingsi meaning thousand Buddhas. They are one of the best preserved and oldest Buddhist grottoes in China. The grottoes are about 70 km from Lanzhou. It was quite a lot of trouble getting there. First I tried to find a tour that goes there - none were available. But one travel agent offered to take me there for 650 Yuan. Too much. So I tried to find a small bus to take me to Liujiaxia dam and then catch a boat to the actual caves. At first I couldn't find the right bus, but then an extremely friendly woman helped me out and made a few calls to find out which minibus I should be taking and she pointed me in the right direction. So I was standing in the rain on a road in Lanzhou on the banks of the Yellow River waiting for a little bus to pass heading for Yongjing. The fifth bus I flagged down was the right one! Of course I was the only white person - all the other passengers were locals with huge bags and suitcases. I think most of them had been shopping in Lanzhou. The busdriver first wanted to rip me off and wanted 30 Yuan for the trip. I gave him 15 Yuan in the end. I think 13 Yuan was the actual price - that's what another passenger paid, who got on a little later than I did. After two hours of driving through rugged but fertile countryside that got more and more mountainous, I got off the bus at Liujiaxia dam. There was a group of Chinese tourists waiting to fill up one of the little boats with one more person, so I was lucky and didn't have to wait. The return trip cost 95 Yuan. The alternative would have been a slower boat for half the price, but then I would have had to wait another hour at the dam. So we sped the 50 km to the grottoes up the Yellow River in a little nutshell speedboat. The driver chainsmoking. A "no smoking" sticker right next to his head. The scenery was very striking - red sandstone cliffs on either side of the river that were weathered into the most fantastic shapes. After maybe an hour we arrived at the grottoes where we got off and I spent two hours walking around. With my student card I got a discount and paid 25 Yuan entrance fee. There are around thirty or so grottoes still intact and in them one can find Buddhas and figures made of stone and clay and incredible frescoes - unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photos. The grottoes are situated in a side valley of the Yellow River. And as you walk up, you get to see glimpses of the biggest statue cut into the cliff and watching over the valley: a 27 meter tall Maitreya Buddha - extremely well preserved. Just the sight of this huge statue was worth the effort of coming here. The two hours on site weren't really long enough, but the boat was waiting, so I headed back. I waited for another bus to come along, but after an hour of waiting I got fed up and found a taxi which I shared with three Chinese people to Lanzhou. The ride cost 50 Yuan - 5 Euros - and I had lots of fun communicating with the driver and the other three in my broken Chinese. Got back to Lanzhou pretty exhausted - the trip had nearly taken 12 hours all in all.
Sitting in a 网巴 (internet bar) with chainsmoking, young Chinese men and women playing online computer games. It's eerily silent, as everybody has headphones on and nobody is talking. You can just here the clicking of the keyboards and the mice... Waiting for my train to Urumqi to leave this afternoon. Didn't do much, just got some food for my 18 hour train journey and found this internet bar.
Lanzhou itself is more interesting than I thought it would be. Have basically been wandering the streets. There are a lot of small street markets and food stalls. No tourists means that most street vendors won't try and sell you things - something very soothing after Xi'an. Lanzhou feels a little backward, everything seems about 15 years behind Beijing. The clothes people wear, the buildings, the cars, the restaurants, just everything. I find this quite a nice contrast to fast paced Beijing. It feels more real. And although Lanzhou is supposed to be China's most polluted city, I have actually seen a blue sky here every day! Unlike Beijing!
I'm staying in a cheap hotel near the train station - couldn't find a hostel anywhere. And the last two nights I got a phone call with a women offering me a "massagy". It took me a while to realise she meant "massage". I declined.
Yesterday I did an excursion to the Binglingsi grottoes - Binglingsi meaning thousand Buddhas. They are one of the best preserved and oldest Buddhist grottoes in China. The grottoes are about 70 km from Lanzhou. It was quite a lot of trouble getting there. First I tried to find a tour that goes there - none were available. But one travel agent offered to take me there for 650 Yuan. Too much. So I tried to find a small bus to take me to Liujiaxia dam and then catch a boat to the actual caves. At first I couldn't find the right bus, but then an extremely friendly woman helped me out and made a few calls to find out which minibus I should be taking and she pointed me in the right direction. So I was standing in the rain on a road in Lanzhou on the banks of the Yellow River waiting for a little bus to pass heading for Yongjing. The fifth bus I flagged down was the right one! Of course I was the only white person - all the other passengers were locals with huge bags and suitcases. I think most of them had been shopping in Lanzhou. The busdriver first wanted to rip me off and wanted 30 Yuan for the trip. I gave him 15 Yuan in the end. I think 13 Yuan was the actual price - that's what another passenger paid, who got on a little later than I did. After two hours of driving through rugged but fertile countryside that got more and more mountainous, I got off the bus at Liujiaxia dam. There was a group of Chinese tourists waiting to fill up one of the little boats with one more person, so I was lucky and didn't have to wait. The return trip cost 95 Yuan. The alternative would have been a slower boat for half the price, but then I would have had to wait another hour at the dam. So we sped the 50 km to the grottoes up the Yellow River in a little nutshell speedboat. The driver chainsmoking. A "no smoking" sticker right next to his head. The scenery was very striking - red sandstone cliffs on either side of the river that were weathered into the most fantastic shapes. After maybe an hour we arrived at the grottoes where we got off and I spent two hours walking around. With my student card I got a discount and paid 25 Yuan entrance fee. There are around thirty or so grottoes still intact and in them one can find Buddhas and figures made of stone and clay and incredible frescoes - unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photos. The grottoes are situated in a side valley of the Yellow River. And as you walk up, you get to see glimpses of the biggest statue cut into the cliff and watching over the valley: a 27 meter tall Maitreya Buddha - extremely well preserved. Just the sight of this huge statue was worth the effort of coming here. The two hours on site weren't really long enough, but the boat was waiting, so I headed back. I waited for another bus to come along, but after an hour of waiting I got fed up and found a taxi which I shared with three Chinese people to Lanzhou. The ride cost 50 Yuan - 5 Euros - and I had lots of fun communicating with the driver and the other three in my broken Chinese. Got back to Lanzhou pretty exhausted - the trip had nearly taken 12 hours all in all.
Sitting in a 网巴 (internet bar) with chainsmoking, young Chinese men and women playing online computer games. It's eerily silent, as everybody has headphones on and nobody is talking. You can just here the clicking of the keyboards and the mice... Waiting for my train to Urumqi to leave this afternoon. Didn't do much, just got some food for my 18 hour train journey and found this internet bar.
posted by Daniel.Lang at
13:12
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I went to the terracotta army today. Didn't want to do a tour, so I walked to the train station - where I saw something very disturbing. Three people were cleaning up after a traffic accident. A scooter had crashed and the rider had cracked his head on the curb. The body was gone, but you could see the blood and the three were scooping up bits of brain and bone with little paper cups. Nobody here in China wears a helmet. Not a very nice way to start the day. Very glad, I didn't see the actual accident...