Silk Road 2003

Got woken up at the unearthly hour of 6.15am by the train conductor, as the train prepared to pull into Lanzhou railway station. I still felt very tired but never mind, there's a great day ahead no doubt. On the approach to the city of Lanzhou we were rewarded with the beautiful view of the Yellow River and some cliffs.

The train pulled into the station at 7am sharp. As usual getting out of the train station was a big fight, with everyone pushing for a quick exit. Gosh, how many carriages did this train have? Where did all these people come from?

There were too much luggage in our group and the van was too small - so had to hire a taxi to take Andy and the luggage to the hotel separately. Our local guide was Steed Chen, and he explained our itinerary for the day - not that I took much in as I was still feeling tired and I felt I had a cold coming at this stage.

Our hotel was the 4-star Jingjiang Sun Hotel - I was not expecting this level of luxury but no complaint. Had a shower and washed some clothes, and then I headed down to the hotel restaurant for a relaxing breakfast.

Sheep Skin Raft on the Yellow River The first stop of today's tour was a park by the Yellow River, where we saw the replica of two giant ancient water wheels - all made of wood and all the pieces were joined together without the use of any nails. Quite an ingenious design really. Then we learnt about the sheep skin raft which was used for transporting goods and produce across the river, and also downstream all the way to Baotou in Inner Mongolia (couldn't go further than that as there's a waterfall after Baotou) - people had to walk back upstream to their starting point afterwards in the old days. The sheepskin had to be treated with linseed oil to prevent drying (dry skin would make it easier to puncture) and waterproof. We then went on one of these sheepskin rafts to cross the river. Pam, Ross, Andy (who surprisingly had never done it before) and I went on one raft - it was a really good laugh and luckily no one fell into the river. Usually larger tours would go on a proper boat, but since there's only 7 of us (plus Andy) we had a far better and more fun experience.

After the rafting experience, we went to visit the Zhongshan Bridge which was used by both pedestrians and behicles. But when a new bridge 1km upstream got completed in November 2003, this bridge would become pedestrian only. The bridge looked very strong as it was made of steel but it's worrying to see some holes with missing nuts and bolts. Still, it's safe enough.

ZhongShan Bridge, Lanzhou Right at the other end of the bridge was the White Pagoda Peak. We didn't go all the way to the top to see the pagoda, but nevertheless there were some very interesting things along the way up the hill. There was a carving which showed the different items you'd expect in a rich house, and then we went to see a stone exhibtion - all the rocks and stones were collected along the river and the patterns and colours were all natural apparently. A lot were given different names and some of them did look as the name suggested, but some others really required some wild imagination.

Lunch was rather nice at a restaurant in the food street, though as usual there's too much food. After lunch we had some free time, so a much-needed 2-hour power nap back at the hotel room was very welcoming (still felt like having a cold coming). When I woke up, I went to the East Is Red Square. The square got its name from the cultural revolution days, when every morning the anthem "East Is Red" was played and then the news of the day was broadcasted in the square. I sneaked into the supermarket in the shopping centre nearby to pick up two bottles of water.

Painting by Mr Lau At 5.30pm we gathered at the hotel again to go to the Gansu Art Museum for an art exhibition - some paintings by the late Mr Lau who was an expert in Tibetan brush paintings but he died in May 2002. I took a few photos of the paintings and surprisingly I was quite fond of some of them. Another obligatory shopping stop in the museum but no one bought anything. I saw a replica of the flying horse statue, the original of which was housed in the Gansu Provincial Museum but unfortunately the museum was closed and so we didn't get to see the real statue.

Dinner was at a rather posh restaurant on the other side of the river - the road was lined with upmarket restaurants. We had some really nice exquisite dishes including double-cooked belly of pork, sweet and sour spare ribs etc. I was completely stuffed by the time I got out of the restaurant - if this way of dining continued, I would gain another 10kg by the time I got back to London.

En route back to the hotel we made a quick 5-minute stop at the Mother of Yellow River statue which was supposed to be the new symbol of Lanzhou. Took a few snaps and we were back in the bus once more.

Then we got held up by the traffic - all due to some government officials and his convoy passing, probably heading towards one of those posh restaurants for dinner too!

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