China trip - Days 5, 6 and 7 - Lanzhou - Silk Road

[niniane]

10/8 – Lanzhou

 

We arrived in Lanzhou almost perfectly on time (Chinese trains are awesome) and found a cab driver somehow. (I was amazed at how literally every cab had someone booked. How does this happen?) As we drove over to the hotel, he was quite fascinated in where we were from, what we were doing (in Mandarin, of course), etc. I think this was in large part as Lanzhou isn't exactly a tourist mecca, so it was exceedingly peculiar for a bunch of white people to be there. (Especially, I think, a white woman who speaks any Chinese at all – although to be fair, I can more easily find white people who speak Chinese than white people who don't speak Chinese off in the hinterlands. The farther out you go in China, the more likely it is that foreign tourists speak at least *some* Mandarin as it becomes increasingly necessary.)

He kept trying to convince us to let him take us to something more interesting than our hotel (there are apparently a bunch of temples and other cool stuff that we *needed* to see and he'd be happy to bring us to - most of these were closer than our hotel, so I don't think he was trying to cheat us), but I insisted, as our bags are quite heavy. We dropped them off and began walking along the Yellow River to the Gansu Provincial Museum, which is supposed to be a very nice museum. (And struck me as a good way to spend a bit of the day when we were too tired to try anything much more complicated.)

Zhong Shan bridge!

Along the way, we saw Middle Mountain (Zhong Shan) bridge, which was constructed in 1910 and is the first bridge to span the Yellow River. It's only open to foot traffic, so made a nice crossing. On the other side, we saw the White Pagoda, a Ming Dynasty pagoda that is one of the major attractions in Lanzhou. It's okay. I mean, there's history, including a tablet explaining how Ghenghis Khan had visited Lanzhou once, and it's a many tiered (if not super tall) pagoda built on a cool base, but it's not super enthralling other than that you get a nice view of the city and it's in a lovely park that was apparently watered by the citizens of Lanzhou individually dragging up buckets of water and ice cubes to water all of the verdant plants. (Quite the task in and of itself!)

Ancient pagoda is ancient.



Pagoda, pagoda, pagoda!


View from pagoda is epic and shows the amazing gardens that the people watered. Hard core, people of Lanzhou, hard core!




The view of the watered hillside and pagoda from the opposite bank. Yes, the pagoda is big and enormous, BUT NOT AS BIG AS THE PARK!

While we were there, an elderly couple asked me a few questions in Mandarin, which of course, I answered. (I'm not great, but at least up to answering things like, “Where are you from?” and “Is this your family?”) A crowd gathered around, I guess amazed that anyone can speak Chinese who isn't. It's getting a bit old now...but oh well. Everyone seemed happy at least...

 

Then we continued along the river, passing a statue of Mother Yellow River with her child (I guess supposed to represent China?) and eventually, after many questions, making it to the museum. (Which was a few miles away.)


In case you wondered what Mother He and Child Han looked like. Apparently it's this.


Also, since we're on the silk road, Xuan Zhuang and the Journey to the West comes up a lot. So, here we have obligatory Monkey King, Pigsey, Xuan Zhang, and Sandy off to retrieve and translate some Buddhist texts. It's a Big Deal.

The other major site was a huge statue that shows a pot from 8,000 BCE. It's a gorgeous pot, so I get it. (Also, I think Lanzhou is saying, "f'you Xi'An, we're *much* older and the beginning of Chinese civilization!") But the statue wasn't quite as cool as seeing the pot in person, so w/e,

 

Anyway, after some getting lost we made it to the museum. The museum itself is exquisite. Lanzhou has a LOT of historical dig sites as well as some impressive archaeology, so there was both a fantastic paleontology museum with dinosaur and mammoth bones, as well as some amazing historical exhibits. Chief among them were early flowering plants that were so perfectly preserved that they looked like pressed flowers, several huge skeletons (a brontosaurus, mammoth, pterodactyl, etc.) , preserved fishes, etc. Among the historical was an entire wing devoted to pottery from 8,000 BCE onwards, showing the slow progression from pots then, to those around 6,000 BCE. (I had been vaguely hoping that they'd take us to present day ceramics, but it's still pretty freaking amazing that they had pots from 8,000 BCE that are essentially in perfect condition. So while my ancestors were futzing around somewhere in the central plains of Asia, the ancestors of the people in Lanzhou were both here and making really spiffy pottery.) There were also some pretty cool dioramas showing ancient life, as near as anyone could guess it, with cities with huge moats and fairly impressive buildings. (I mean, they're small wooden huts, but there were hundreds of them, which is no mean feat.)

 

Another very cool exhibit was one detailing the trade along the silk road. Apparently China essentially got its start as a state because people wanted the trade goods, so local war lords banded together to create a single entity to defend the trade goods against marauders between the Mediterranean and the west. (I guess kind of like the EU?) On display were fantastic grave goods, including the amazing flying horse (so called as he's perfectly balanced on a single hoof – quite the feat of engineering, especially around 0 CE), an entire army of pleasure chariots, war chariots, cavalry, and foot soldiers (all in miniature bronze, all clearly cast from the same mold) that were found in a grave, and a phenomenal amount of lace and embroidery from around 1000 CE (which blows my mind as fabric rarely preserves). It was an amazing exhibit, and very nicely put together with cool graphics and nice explanations of everything in English and Chinese. (China really has improved their museums. Well...so has the US, so I suppose not really that surprising.)

 

We caught a bus back to the hotel, then ate the local delicacy, beef noodles, which were tasty, if a bit too spicy. (I asked the waiter to make mine not too hot, and he added twice the spice he did to either of my parents. Hah hah hah, very funny...)

 

NEXT day - 10/9 - Lanzhou

 

Today I'd wanted to see the Thousand Buddha monastery, a 1500 year old collection of rock carvings by the Yellow River that are supposed to be fantastic. (Like, you can only get there by boat, so you charter a boat, sail along cliffs, and then arrive at an ancient monastery with exquisite carvings. What's not to love? This is the primary reason I'd stopped in Lanzhou! Well, that and it's a major rail crossing, but eh...when at a major rail crossing, make sure to check out their exquisite museums and local 1500 year old stupendous monasteries, that's what I always say!)

 

Anyway, I asked at the front desk of the hotel as to how to get there, and they pointed me to a bus. When I looked at the bus map, I couldn't see a stop that mentioned the exit that corresponded to the suburb the Buddhas are in, but then there was one that had bus station...so I figured that this would correspond to a connecting bus. (Gee, I wish the front desk people had told me that..it's annoying in that they clearly don't speak English, but do know I speak Mandarin, so I don't get why they couldn't just freaking say, “Hey, go HERE, then change buses, then take THIS bus.” Gah...)

 

Anyway, I got to the front of the bus station line to ask about a bus, and was told, “No buses!” then “8:30”, which doesn't make a lick of sense seeing as if there are no buses, 8:30 shouldn't matter. (Ugh...) I tried to ask for clarification in Mandarin, but the annoying bus ticket lady wouldn't answer in anything other than (really awful) English. So that was that...

 

I kept trying to puzzle out the cryptic nature of bus lady, but figured that I still really wanted to go, so asked a cab driver who said he'd take us for 400 (a fairly stiff price, about $67 USD). I asked him to use the meter instead (as that tends to prevent insanely inflated costs), but he insisted that he'd have to wait for us, so didn't want to use it. (Which make sense, but I should have taken down his number right then. Oh well....)

 

Anyway, it took him about 2 hours (waaaay too long) to get there, and then he found us a boat for another 800 RMB (which, to be honest, is probably only a touch inflated). Then we set out on the water (gloriously beautiful!) and arrived in a tiny town that bordered the monastery. A kind woman on the boat told us that we needed to be back at 12:30, about an hour and a half from then. We got our tickets (from a woman who seemed delighted to inform my parents that their tickets were half off, seeing as they're elderly.)


Our tourist boat docked at 10,000 Buddhas. Seeing as it's off season, we were the ONLY boat. It was great.

 

Honestly, the local scenery alone likely made this worthwhile.

The monastery itself was worth the effort. The river itself is lovely – golden and jade green water, cliffs rising from it, and willows everywhere. The monastery dates from 300 AD to about 1000 AD, with the mentioned 10,000 Buddhas carved everywhere. The most “splashy” is a Tang Dynasty Buddha that's about a hundred feet high carved into the wall...but I honestly liked some of the smaller caves with Buddhas and disciples carved into tiny nooks and decorated with paints that have remained vivid even after 1500 years that show lavish gardens, brilliant scenes of heaven, etc. This used to be a major crossing of the Yellow River, and it's not hard to see the monks showing travelers these extraordinary scenes and getting more than a few to convert. (And more than a few to admire their beauty but to note that they're wealthy merchants, and no, they're not giving up their camels and silk to become Boddhavistas.)


Oh, just ANOTHER paint still preserved, carvings still mostly preserved Buddhist grotto from 700 AD. There are...so many here it boggles the mind.


Do you like ceilings? It's faded a bit from its peak 1500 years ago, but is still freaking amazing!

 

Words really can't express the scale of this place. Cubbies like this were *everywhere*. Some were guarded. Some were left open. But there were...so many.


An amazing statue restored in the Tang dynasty.


The enormous Tang dynasty Buddha carved into the river wall. Note how HUGE it is by the tiny human paths around it. We are so small and insignificant compared to any religious figure....




Obligatory picture of family in front of scenery since why not...



It was over far too soon, even though half the grottoes were closed off (we were in low season, so it was literally only our 10 person boat there right then). But we got to see the reclining Buddha (saved from rising waters and dating back from around 300 AD) before we left and got back on the boat.

 

Once on the other side, we were gestured back to a minibus...which took us to a big bus where we paid 20 RMB a person and got us back in oh, about half an hour. (grrr...) So there were buses. I'm still very frustrated that we didn't find one, as it would have saved us a lot of money and aggravation. Oh well. Lesson learned, I guess.

 

We closed off the day by finding a BBQ place that was a ton of fun. They put out hot coals with a grate over it (all in a fancy restaurant), then brought along sauces, meats, and vegetables for us to grill. We put on the meats with tongs, then flipped them around with iron chopsticks before eating them. It was a lot of fun and delicious. I can see it catching on in the US.

 

Amazing BBQ place is amazing. Tired Julia is tired. (Also, like not wearing any make up in any of these photos, so that I look human is impressive enough.)

10/10 – Lanzhou

 

The thought today was that we'd maybe go out to a Taoist mountain just to have something to do. Supposedly we could take a bus from Tian Shui bus station.. As usual, the front desk people had no idea as to how to do this, but I thought that maybe the Tian Shui road stop might have the station.

 

We got out there, asked for directions, and everyone gave different ones. Eventually an old man stated that it was by the train station (which is what I thought....) so we headed another few miles over there, just to get there and be told that we had to go to the Tian Shui bus station by the lady at the bus station. (Which was...?) At which point we gave up.


We did pass some cool parks, though, including one with a huge statue of Genghis Khan from which this weird cracking was coming from. Turns out cracking whips is the new elderly past time in China. Not sure how this came to be a Thing, but it's cool!

 

(Another fun fact: I needed to use the restroom so found one of the many public restrooms. The thing happily greeted me as I opened the door with, “Hello and welcome!” in Mandarin, then proceeded to play chipper music, then told me, “Good bye and have a safe trip!” when I left. It was utterly creepy. I do not want my toilet to ever talk to me again.)

 

So now it was time to go back to our hotel, which was conveniently by Zhong Shan bridge....so I went to Zhong Shan park (which was no where whatsoever near the bridge, as it happens to be). I asked how to get to the bridge, but this too appeared to be a mystery...so I retraced our steps back to the station we'd originally gotten off at, then returned to the stop by the hotel.


Zhong Shan park is at least super pretty! No, no, wait, this was by Zhong Shan Bridge. IDK. I give up.

 

Note to self: No one in the entire freaking city of Lanzhou knows how to get anywhere in it. Yargh.

We stopped by waterwheel park which has...waterwheels. You can also float down the river on a pig skin raft, which seems like a kinda bad idea seeing as how Lanzhou was just recently removed from "most polluted cities in the world" list, but...w/e.

 

More daring people, risking the pollution.

Of course, not being able to get anywhere brought up a new problem. Since we didn't seem able to catch a cab to save our lives (they were nearly always all full), and the stops were weird at best for the buses (and the subway wasn't slated to get going until next year), how were we doing to get to the bullet train station? (Made all the harder by that there are THREE train stations. Yargh...)

 

Anyway, I knew we needed to make it to the WEST train station (not EAST or non-specified station). But how? According to the Internet, there were about a dozen or so lines that went there...but even when I ran into ones near the hotel, none of them said anything that said “western train station” and one had to (not at all near each other stops) that said “West Stop”. YARGH!

 

I asked at our hotel and they noted the most likely of the stops (West Stop, which is also what they called it, so yay?) But then there were two west stops, which weren't all that close...

 

So I took the bus down to the western train stop. On the bus, there were not one but FOUR stops that had “western stop” in them (Western Stop Junction, Western Stop North, Western Stop Parking, Western Stop South). So...damned if I knew which one it was. I rode the bus though. The first wasn't near anything, the next three, though, were all in front of the bullet train station, just on the opposite side of the street. (With nice pedestrian over passes over it...that weren't available yet as they were being built. Yargh)

 

Eventually I figured out that getting out at the first then backtracking to a cross walk (crossing which was like playing high stakes frogger – a game I saw a dog playing earlier. Cars were skidding to a halt around crazy dog that was zig zagging in and out of traffic to find other dogs to sniff then race off from to find a new friend standing in the middle of the street. Street dogs here be crazy), crossing, then going into the awesome bullet train building. (Which is brand new and has an architectural style that looks straight out of Blade Runner).

 

This dog kept jumping in front of speeding cars so he could sniff her friends. She's probably dead now. No idea how she's still alive as of the picture.



Weird blade-runner-esque bullet train station WITH NO ONE THERE, SUPER HIGH SECURITY, AND A PIANO FOR NO GOOD REASON.

Also weird, it had a "foreigners reading room" on the map, but didn't appear to have one in the building. I scored the place. No foreigner's reading room. So disappoint. The Chinese one existed and looked like what my grandmother would have liked in a parlor if she was super into pink floral crap and lace.


Now confident that I could at least FIND the station, I went back to a nice bar (that served bottled mediocre beer from other countries – yay Budweiser and Asahi... as well as some really delicious snacks), then slept.

Super cool bar in Lanzhou was super cool. The beer might have been lacking, but the snacks were totally en pointe as was the decor!