It was a pretty long way from Urumqi and Lanzhou. We’d booked our tickets late so ended up on top bunks a few carriages apart on the 30 hour train journey. We entertained ourselves by meeting up for rendezvous in the restaurant car.

 

Lanzhou was our first proper big Chinese city.  Urumqi had sky scrapers, but only a million residents Lanzhou has almost 3 million, even so it is still pretty parochial by Chinese city standards.  The city has great restaurants and a steamy night market lined with stall holders selling fried things on sticks, or boiled things with a hot and sour dip.  We plumped for the boiled things and a couple of beers, we ate and drank until we were bursting and got change from a quid.

 

Lanzhou is the capital of Gansu province, and is mainly useful as a jumping off point into the nether regions of the area.  The next day we caught a bus to the buddist monastery town of Xiahe.