Lanzhou, the centre of China

Lanzhou (兰州) appears to be geographically pretty much in the centre of China, though it doesn't feel that I have travelled that far since Kashgar, and did not take too long, so maybe China is not as big as you are sometimes led to believe. With plenty of places to stop on the way and good transport links, overnight busses/trains etc, it has not been difficult getting this far at all.

However, there's not much to see here in Lanzhou, just a convenient place to stop on the train (overnight 11 hour journey from Jaiyuguan), train arrives here early morning and I thought it would be a good place to get a connection South towards Nanning. Turns out not to be the case, but never mind. I wanted to stop here anyway and visit BingLing Si caves a set of caves containing Buddhist art accesible only by boat along the Yellow river (黄河, Huang he). Unfortunately, often at this time of year, boats cannot get there due to low water levels, also the fact there are no other tourists meant it would be very expensive to arrange by myself, so this idea has been put to one side for a later date. There are a few other places in the vicinity too worth a visit, but because I need to get to Nanning by Dec1, I did not rush to to make any of these trips. Instead, I just hung around Lanzhou for a couple of days, finding my way around, drinkiing tea, eating Lanzhou beef noodles, thinking about routes to Nanning from here and after deciding the only thing I had time for was to just go there directly, then trying to decipher a Chinese railways timetable to find out how to get from Lanzhou to Nanning.


Above: Xuanzang, Monkey and friends from 'Journey to the West'.

The only things of note to see in Lanzhou were a couple of Buddhist temples, the famous Yellow River, which is in fact a dirty muddy brown colour and the statue of Xuanzang, Monkey, Pigsy from the book 'Journey to the West' better known in the UK as the TV series adaptation, 'Monkey'. Unfortunately the weather was pretty dismal when I was there, overcast and cold and even a little snow, the one day it was a little warmer, the sun could still not be seen very much due to the awful air pollution in Lanzhou, which is allegedly one of the world's worst. The city is not all that bad and will be a good base to visit Bingling Si in future and too head for other places in the region such as Maiji Shan or to head South to Xiahe which has the great Tibetan Labrang monastery before heading further South town by town towards Sichuan province, something I would have liked to have done given the time.

Anyway, discovered the way to Nanning is via a change at Chengdu or Xi'an. My original idea was to head to Xi'an and spend a week or so there seeing various sites, but with wanting to reach Nanning for a wedding soon, I won't have time for more than a day or two, so I do not really want to go there now and rush it. Chengdu is more interesting, but I'm told it's more difficult, involves more waiting and is more expensive so recommended to go via Xi'an. Therefore, bought a ticket on overnight to Xi'an, arrive early morning, and there is then a train to Nanning direct from Xi'an in the evening, so will need to go buy a ticket and spend a day wandering around Xi'an.

That's all from Lanzhou