Lanzhou – Jiayuguan #3

From this post on I will put the places as titles (because Im bad at titles) I’ll put up pics when Im able to get on pc

 

In early morning Lanzhou, the train station was already flooded by people as we tried to find ourselves taxis to tour around the key attractions as we dont have much time until 5.30pm train to Jiayuguan. I picked Lanzhou because of its history and significance other than as the connecting city as we go westward. We found a pleasant guy from the many locals who promoted their services and decided to talk to him.

We entered his car together with a kid and an old guy crammed inside thinking we’re heading to the attractions we thought we made him understand from the phrases and translations. Alas, we realized he’s going farther out from town and climbed onto hilly zig zagging roads. Me and my friend knew we arent going to where we thought we agreed upon but it was already too far and long gone…partly from our impatience to not wait around at the train station in the cold. The penance for this is getting a ride to an unknown location in a foreign country with the inability to speak the language. Fuck I guess! I kept talking to my friend to be calm and we’ll figure this out once we arrive to where he was also bringing the other 2 passengers. Because there was NO WAY you could ask to be let out on that mountainous road man…and it was so.cold. Our enemy is the damn weather!!

Suddenly he asked us if we needed a toilet break. We’re like yeah sure but WHERE? In the middle of these endless barren mountains? Then he climbed a steep road and put a break on the car. He directs us to a (can you guess it) local’s house that is situated halfway below the ground level where the car was parked. We walked to the yard with the driver and he presumedly tell them abt us needing toilet. The house itself was unlike any Ive ever seen before online nor real life! I tried to act normal but inside I was so intrigued. The paintings on the tiles, the design of the yard, the outhouse as the toilet etc not to forget the intimidating guard dog.

We thanked them profusedly and hike back to the car. As we get in the other 2 passengers smiled and seemed didnt mind abt the time we spent there. It was about half an hour I think. I wonder how did they control their bladder in this cold 😂

It took is ~2hrs to arrive at a town here. It was dusty, a little hot from a 10am sun but prickly cold. Once we get telco lines back we looked up the gps. We’re in Linxia.

 

One time I was in China #2 Xi’an – Lanzhou

So Im updating the previous post. The next morning we checked out. The management allowed us to store our bags at the reception and came back in the evening to pick it up and find a taxi for the ride to the train station. Actually the city is well connected with a metro system but sincr we were noobs and dont want to walk too much we decided to flag a taxi. To get us out from the alleys we took a small trishaw like vehicle and found a taxi afterwards.

I was quite shocked to see the huge train hub. Even at night the place is packed and lines are long. In its proximity there were security gates and your stuff will get checked by uniformed forces. An officer asked me something in Mandarin but after 3 times he gave up and let me go lmao. It was dizzying to navigate for first timers but luckily diytravel.com website that we prebooked the tickets from had all the instructions to ease the whole process. To communicate I used translate app together with typed phrases on a piece of paper and plastered it wide on the surface of the glass interface lol the staff quickly get to business and we were done in about 15minutes from getting our tickets printed to queuing for entry to the waiting hall. Can you imagine only patrons with tickets get to enter the building. All the buzz we saw outside were people who had arrived early to wait for their entry when the time comes. The whole freaking building is ONLY for waiting! Then I remembered how huge this city is in itself. Couldnt be compared to where Im from lol!

As usual locals looked at you all the time when you’re around them. Walking through a super long horizontal seating area in like a huge ass hall to see the current trains docking and departing gets a lil overwhelming as we werent experienced travelers and never been to China. It was all very interesting and mind boggling at the same time just observing the way things are run and how the people acted around themselves. The walk to the underground railway was cold and unexpectedly long and rushed. I thought Im gonna miss it (I felt like this at every train stations on this trip 😂) we get to our 4people sleeper room. There was this old couple that stayed with us. Without understanding a word between us we all managed to somehow connect..idk how to explain it. But it was nice…I get to sleep the shit out of that 7hrs ride. On trips I tend to fully enjoy the act of sleep. In normal times this is unnatural to me. So anyway we arrived at 6.30am in Lanzhou. And omg it was so cold, to us, who are hot blooded creatures from the equator and it was 9c of the final tip of winter in central Asia.

Lanzhou Train Station