We arrived in Lanzhou at around noon, with many misgivings, on my part at least, disembarked. This was the Beijing train we were abandoning, + we had sleepers aboard it. But Val was keen on taking the northern loop to Beijing, + that meant getting off, so off we got. If Lanzhou had any advantages, it was that we knew the ropes, around a limited part of the city anyway, incorporating the stn + hotel. At least, we thought we did. When we went to the booking office to validate our ticket for tomorrow’s train, the vast crowds completely disoriented us, so that we had no idea which window to go to, + we didn’t want to spend hrs in the wrong queue, only to discover we had wasted our time. There was a counter, especially reserved + labelled for foreigners, + tho’ it was closed with no-one in attendance, we still found it to be of use, for we met some HK Chinese there, + applied to them for assistance. One girl detached herself from the group, + went to a lot of trouble for us, eventually pushing in at the front of the right queue + getting our tickets. She saved us a lot of time, + even more effort.
From there we strolled to the hotel + checked in with no trouble at all, but then had to decided whether to visit the atmospheric physicist we had met on the train a couple of weeks ago. He had invited us to do so, + his place of work was but a few yards away from the hotel, but we were nonetheless tempted not to bother, because of the effort involved in making English small talk. It was, however, an opportunity which we felt we shouldn’t ignore – one rarely makes such close contact with the local people. So it was with mixed feelings, relief tinged with disappointment, that we discovered he was not in, + wouldn’t be, moreover, for a few days. We left a note with one of his colleagues to say we were sorry we had missed him, (I hope this doesn’t provide the ammunition a rival would crave to shoot him down) + strolled back to the hotel, where we whiled away an hour hurling our frisbee at each other.
We ate once again at our favourite dumpling house cum cheap restaurant, then relaxed in our room, chatting with a couple French travellers, with some difficulty, in French. I don’t like the French as a rule, but happily these 2 proved exceptions to that. The fly in the ointment was a Hong Konger, who revealed the most wicked of snores. We’ve somehow been spared such companions in the past – even Val has controlled her nocturnal expirations – but this bloke was wicked, exasperating all 4 of his room-mates.
Both disappointing and something of a relief that our Chinese contact was not there. Otherwise, we are making our way east, via Beijing, Shanghai and eventually Hong Kong once more.
