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Enroute to Liuyuan (June 17) · Jun 19, 08:54 AM
I sleep lightly and when I check the time it’s 5:15 so I pack quickly, buy water and a little bread for the six hour bus ride back to Lanzhou, then walk to the station in the chilly morning. I’ve started wearing the white lightweight long-sleeve shirt here. It’s good against bright sun and chilly pre-dawn breezes.
I get onto the 6:30 bus to Lanzhou and off again a few minutes later to buy a ticket. I take a front-row aisle seat with a decent view out the front windshield. The ride down takes us down out of the high green valley and then over a desert mountain range into Lanzhou. Construction, traffic, and bad roads slow the trip down. A Chinese woman across from me sleeps for most of the trip, waking occasionally to heave or vomit into little plastic bags. At the halfway stop she drinks something, but doesn’t keep it down. I eat my pre-packaged rolls and enjoy the ride.
In Lanzhou I split a cab with a couple from Liechtenstein, then split lunch. The sweet and sour tofu and the sweet and sour cabbage was good. We all spend about ninety minutes online and then part ways. The ride east; I ride west.
I have a soft sleeper on T197 bound for Urumqi, but I’ll disembark tomorrow morning at Liuyuan, then find transport to Dunhuang. The soft sleeper cost about 340 RMB (twice what a hard sleeper costs, on par with an air ticket), but it was the only ticket I was able to buy in Lanzhou three days ago. There’s so much head-room that I can sit up in my upper bunk with room to spare. A woman in the lower bunk across from me is exceptionally bright and very good at talking down to me. She plays interpreter for the others in our room, though she has no English. Tomorrow morning I’ll find out that she is an accountant.
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The evolution of Tom as traveler is really shaping up. It’s a routine of spontaneity!
— malfridi Jun 19, 10:23 AM #You message is eerily well-timed. An American archeologist and myself are making fun new plans for an overland journey along the southern silk road into Tibet.
Word on the net is that the Tibet Travel Permit system goes kaput July first (when the Lhasa Express opens to passenger traffic).
— Tom Jun 22, 07:38 AM #