Goodbye Xiahe, Hello Lanzhou, Goodbye LanZhou, Hello Dunhuang

I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow after our night in the streets and awoke the next morning excited to meet my new Tibetan friends. We met them outside of our room in the foggy morning and strolled down the street chatting and looking for a place to stop for breakfast. They picked a place for us where I think they thought we’d find some American breakfast foods. No such luck but the food was fine and we were there mostly for the conversation anyway.

When we asked if they’d told their parents they were meeting us they replied yes and that their parents were very excited because they loved America and wished they could go there. Suddenly I knew I need to give these girls something to remember us by the way they had given us gifts yesterday. Skipping out early on breakfast with another friend we raced back to the hotel to find some NYU shirts that we had brought with us that had America written all over them. The girls accepted our gifts happily and we were presented with even more gifts. We all got some prayer flags and incense as well as a traditional white scarf that our guide told us was a gesture of welcoming. I have the prayer flags hanging in my room right now. 

 

 Me with my prayer flags in my room in Shanghai.

We checked the time and found that we were running late and grabbed a cab back to the hotel, cabs being less than a dollar per ride here! Back at the rooms the girls helped us pack our things and gave us all Tibetan names. My Tibetan name is “Lamu” (I’m not sure if that’s how it’s spelled) and they told me it translates into something close to “beautiful.” I was sad to get on the bus to leave these people who had been so kind to me without even knowing me and had bestowed such precious gifts on me. It was with a heavy heart that we waved goodbye to them and set off for Lanzhou. 

 Zhongshan Bridge....ooooohhh.

The four-hour bus ride to Lanzhou was mostly a sleepy haze for me and we arrived only to choke down another sub-par meal at another cookie cutter tourist restaurant. After our meal we set off for the Zhongshan Bridge, the first bridge that was ever built across the Yellow River that flows through Lanzhou and through many other parts of China. We tried our best to be impressed by the bridge but to be honest after our intense cultural experience in Xiahe it was a little difficult to get worked up over a bridge, especially when another friend and myself spent half the time discussing the fact that we see bridges like this all the time in Pennsylvania. Still you have to appreciate the marvel of finally crossing the Yellow River…even if it didn’t happen until a German builder interfered in 1907. We did enjoy some delicious candied fruit on our way from the bridge to our next destination however, which was enough for us to be satisfied. 

 

I guess it is kind of yellow. 

 The most delicious thing ever.

Our next stop was the Water Wheel Gardens. Essentially these are left over wooden water wheels from older generations. Years ago they would have been used to irrigate land, these days they serve as a tourist attraction. They’re most impressive in their representation of the innovation of the Chinese people and their size. The main attraction in this area absolutely had to be hopping on a sheepskin raft and rafting down the muddy Yellow River. 

 Irrigation!

From the pictures it will be clear that the Yellow River is not the cleanest river that you’ve ever laid eyes on. We joked the entire time we sat on the raft of what must be lurking in it’s depths and what would happen if we fell in. The raft was surprisingly stable. And I say surprisingly because, well, look at it. There are clearly outlined forms of sheep that have been inflated and attached to the bottom that are carrying us. It seems so primitive and yet it works just as well as a rubber raft would have for our purposes and it was so much cooler! At first I worried that the river might be a little swift because of all the rain they’d been receiving, but we floated with only a few bumps and splashing to our stopping point, and were transported back by speed boat. 

 Poor sheep.

From there is was a breakneck journey to visit different famous statues that lined the Yellow River in Lanzhou. We were on a tight schedule to get all of our sightseeing out of the way before we had to catch our o-clock 14 hour train ride from Lanzhou to our next stop in Dunhuang. I tried to appreciate the statues however, and my favorite had to be the one depicting the Journey to the West. The Journey to the West is a great Chinese novel published in the 1590s, so it’s definitely a classic. Although I’ve never read the book, the name of the statues was what made it interesting to me. We were making our own little journey to the West, having started in Shanghai; by the next day we would have traveled about 1600 miles to the west. 

 Part of the "Journey to the West" statue in Lanzhou

Once we were done with sightseeing we were herded back on the bus dropped to buy something to eat for dinner on the train, and then rushed into the train station where we waited a relatively short time before boarding our overnight train to Dunhuang, with little time to contemplate the living situation that awaited us.