Edinburgh, Scotland to Lanzhou, China

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Getting to Lanzhou

Flights were very very long but we survived (with many movies), and had our last western fast food for a while - McDonalds in Dubai airport, which kept us going until Beijing, 17hrs of travelling in all. We passed the swine flu scanners and were picked up by La-la (yes that is her English name), a friend of Smiles. She drove us to our hotel though only after managing to get completely lost for 2 hrs on the Beijing highways, poor her! 😉 We had our first experience of authentic Chinese food with La-la at a famous Beijing duck restaurant, Beijing duck was fantastic as was a foot high tower of crispy noodles, I was less keen on the bony cold dishes though. Andrew predictably liked all of it and even managed some Chinese toasts with beer in tiny glasses with La-la's boyfriend. Left Beijing the next day - will return to see the sights another time I hope! - for another 17 hrs on a train. We have hard sleeper tickets so we get a bed which is not so hard (much better than a seat!) and settle in. Arrive in Lanzhou at 7.30am, 40 hrs after leaving Edinburgh to clear blue skies and towering desert mountains.

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Photos

Dubai Airport
umm, not sure why Andrew's saluting the waterfall...

Hard sleeper
Not bad at all - though you do go a bit numb if you lie on one side for too long!