Blogs from Lanzhou, Gansu, China, Asia - page 3

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 ... read more

Witt and I woke up at the break of dawn yesterday after a VERY late night out in Beijing. It was a nice morning, and we were excited/a little intoxicated as we packed our last minute provisions (TP) and headed to the airport for our adventure. We flew from Beijing to Lanzhou, which took about 2 hours, and then had our first bump in the road... I had no idea how far the city-center was from the Lanzhou airport, so I just got right into a taxi and we were on our way. The driver didn't ask any questions, and didn't try to bargain with me... just started the meter and we were on our way... Over an hour later, and 200RMB out of my pocket, Witt and I were in Lanzhou, at the only 4-star ... read more

Following the Yellow river to the west, we are now in the Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, the most famous thing there is the noddle, Lanzhou noddle is very popular in China, there are so many Lanzhou noddle restaurant around the China, the most interesting part is how they prepare the noddle, by pulling, initially it is a piece of the pasta, the cooker just bend and pull, bend and pull, finally turns the piece of the pasta into the slim noddle, it is always impress the foreigner at the first time, we always ate the Lanzhou noddle around China, so this time we had the real Lanzhou noddle in the Lanzhou, and then we realized that the prate is a little different, better and come much more, more garnish and noddle.... read more

We headed out of Xian yesterday. really ready to get on the road. Xian is a nice city and all geared up for the Olympics but I was ready to see what was around the next corner. We loaded up the truck and started out with the aim of reaching Pingliang around 10 hrs later. (It was 300km.) The plan was to visit a big buddha along the way. About half an hour into the journey we hit the first section of a day long truck jam. There seemed to be no real reason for the road of trucks - watermelons, donkeys, chickens, goats - but the truck crawl lasted for around 4hrs. Trucks cutting in and then just stopping. The 10 hrs turned into a 14hrs journey. We reached Pingliang around 9pm and basically ... read more

I say for a couple of nights in a town called Liujaxia, where they obviously don't see many Westerners from the looks I got, and caught a boat up the Huang He (Yellow River) from the huge Dam, 60km to the Bingling Si Buddha caves. An enormous seated Buddha has been carved from the cliff face. At 27m high and 1600 years old, it's an amazing thing to behold (though not the biggest in China by a long way) and some of the other carvings there are both old and beautiful, a bit like me. I took a half hour walk up the valley to visit a small working Buddhist temple and had tea and biscuits with a very lonely monk call Putojansu. It was a surreal experience. On the speed-boat on the way back to ... read more