In Lanzhou

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The airport bus takes an hour to drive from the airport into town, we paid 30Y, there is only 1 stop. It’s a long taxi drive to the West part of town, we paid 16Y to arrive at the Youyi Binguan.

We stayed at the Friendship Hotel : Youyi Binguan, situated in the West part of town, right across the Provincial Museum
Tel : [phone] - 60189 Economy double 80Y (40Y common facilities) - Standard double 100Y - Deluxe double 200Y. 24h/d hot water, TV, telephone. Air-conditioning was in repair, breakfast not included.
Big hotel which is used to have foreign guests, friendly personnel. They have 2 buildings: the old one in the front, rooms were the original ones of 1956, and the new building is in the back, those rooms are typical Chinese 2- and 3- star hotel rooms, the entrance finished renovation while we were there, and is magnificent.
What you can find around the hotel: 2 restaurants on the hotel grounds, and several more in the close vicinity. A supermarket and post office are nearby, and a small CITS office was they were friendly and gave information without selling anything! A bus stop with different bus lines to go anywhere you like.

As we visited Lanzhou a couple of years ago, we did not spend a lot of time in the city. Unfortunately the Gansu Provincial Museum had not been reopened yet (Aug 2006) after the big renovations, but we visited the brand new “Waterwheel Park” The main purpose however was to travel to the Bingling si Caves. We finally decided to have first a look to Linxia, and than visited the Bingling si caves on the way back to Lanzhou. The weather was fine: temperature was on average 30°C (early August), but when the sun came, it raised to 35°C. Relative Humidity was very low.

The Shui che da guan yuan (Waterwheel Park) looked brand new, was not yet marked as such on the city map. It is situated in the East part of town, next to the remaining 12 waterwheels (6 x2) along the Yellow River. In 1950 there still were 252 wheels. They use the power of the running water to pour small portions of water in a duct which than brings the water into town. . It was very interesting to see the technique. Lots of scale-models of different sizes demonstrate the technique. Entrance fee was 10Y. We went by public bus : first to Xiguan, from there we took bus No135, which has a stops at the park entrance. We went back to the Friendship Hotel on bus No74..

We took the bus to Linxia at the South bus station (Qiche nanzhan, not at the West bus station!) from the Friendship Hotel you can reach it with busses Nos 111, 129, 139. Touts are almost literally pushing foreign passengers in buses to Xiahe. We bought tickets at the ticket office, and were not asked to buy an assurance. We paid 29Y, it took 3 hours, initially using the new Highway to Lintau, we did not come across Yongjing (typical to visit Binglingsi). It was a nice drive.

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