Lanzhou - The capitol city of Gansu province

16.01.09

We arrived after having spent the night on the train from Jiayuguan. Lanzhou is situated in the South of Gansu, by the Yellow River (Huang He). It is a fairly big city with around 2,8 million inhabitants. According to the Lonely Planet China book, this city was at one point during the 1990s considered to be the world's most (air) polluted city. But no problem, we have bought these nice "cotton covers" for our mouths.

We quickly noticed that Lanzhou is a city full of sights. There are many things to see here. The Gansu Provincial Museum is really cool. It is loaded with Silk Road history, and with an awesome paleontological department. The last one is very interesting because of the many discoveries in this province.

We also visited an old Taoist temple close to the bank of the Yellow River. White Cloud Temple was beautiful, but it looked kind of lonely and malplaced because of all the skyscrapers surrounding it. Also we saw a beautiful mosque that is situated in the center of the city. Lanzhou has a lot to offer. It is surrounded by hills, and has a lot of parks. We hiked to the top of White Pagoda Hill. It has many nice buildings and a white pagoda on the summit. Unfortunately, the visibility was a bit like Lonely Planet warned us about.

Lanzhou is famous for it's beef noodles (niu rou mian). We decided to go to test them, and we see why. They were delicious. We ate them again a couple of times before we set off towards our next target on this journey: Chengdu in Sichuan Province.

Dunhuang - an oasis far away

11.01.09
Arrived this morning in Dunhuang, in Gansu province. A famous laid back oasis, with surrounding desert and many historical buddhist caves and grottoes. Dunhuang is a nice little city, and we will stay here for two nights, heading for Jiayuguan on the 13th.
Walking in the desert, riding camels, and looking at the oasis from afar was a really nice experience. The fact that we are doing this in an area that was a part of the old Silk Road makes it even more exciting. There was a bit of snow in the desert when we visited it, which made it look different from anything we have ever seen before.
We also visited The Thousand Western Buddhist Grottoes, which was situated alongside a beautiful river canyon just outside Dunhuang. The grottoes were closed when we came there, but the sights were amazing.