Silk Road 2003

Woke up a few times by the lightning and thunder during the night - it seemed to be really close at one point, as the lightning lit up the room even when the curtain was closed, and then the deafening thunder literally shook the whole room. It was still pouring down with rain at 5am.

However when I finally got out of bed, the rain had stopped. The water level in the river had risen and the water was gushing down the river.

I was rather annoyed with myself when I lost one of the locks. But it was found by Steed - Apparently he picked it up on the floor outside the hotel. Thank God for that.

Stopped by the Buddha Screen and the small hill next to it before leaving Xiahe. Climbed up to see the panoramic view of the Labrang Monastery. Walking back down was a bit scary - very slippery muddy slope due to all the rain the night before. One wrong step and it's a major fall all the way down the slope. Fortunately I didn't end up with this speedy way down.

Linxia Street Scene There were landslides and rocks and huge boulders along the road back to Lanzhou - all rather scary. Also the ways trucks. coaches, lorries overtaking each other made the trip rather interesting, if somewhat scary! I saw more than a few near-misses, but I guessed the drivers must know what they were doing.

We stopped at Linxia for about half an hour to look at some shops selling various things - a high concentration of shops selling furs (or animal skins of some sort) and knives.

Chinese muslim wedding at Linxia Lunch was at Yinxin restaurant again, and for a second time we witnessed a wedding - but this time it's a muslim Chinese wedding. When the bride arrived, they lit up some firecrackers - so there was a lot of noise. After seeing the brief ceremony, we went to our dining room. As usual the food was excellent but again a lot was left untouched as we simply couldn't eat that much.

Another few hours drive (after more scary near-misses, overtaking at blind spots, getting blinded by trucks pumping out deadly black exhaust fumers etc), we arrived back at Lanzhou. After a quick shower at the New Century hotel next to the railway station, we headed out for dinner. Again the meal was excellent but as usual the amount of leftover made me feel that we were wasting too much food. Mind you, any more sweet and sour pork on this trip, I'd be sick.

After dinner, Steed told a few jokes. There's one that got stuck in my mind - it's a bit silly but put a smile on my face:

"A Jewish man went to eat at a Chinese restaurant and started to wonder if there were any Chinese Jews. So, when the waiter came over to take his order, he asked, "Pardon me, but I'd like to know if there are any Chinese Jews?"

The waiter said, "I no know. I go to kitchen and ask manager."

After taking his order, the waiter went to the kitchen and returned in a few minutes. He explained to the man, "No. No Chinese Jews. We have orange Jews, tomato Jews, grape Jews, and pineapple Jews, but no Chinese Jews."

Andy tried to find an internet cafe near the hotel but couldn't find one. Nevertheless, it was a nice walk in the streets of Lanzhou - or should I say "not so nice"? It's just like walking along a street in a heavily polluted and populated city.

Inside the train at Lanzhou We got onto the train at about 10pm, after running through a very dusty tunnel to the platform and probably inhaled zillions of harmful dust particles - why was there someone sweepign all the dusts in the tunnel anyway? What's the point of that, when it seemed that the dust just got swept from one side to the other side inside the tunnel.

Andy, Nancie, Judy and I chatted in our compartment till midnight and then it's bedtime.

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