Zheng Da Heng Hotel Lanzhou

... gotta do i guess...and it turned out to be a right result.<br>Having found it quite difficult to get off the tourist trail, this turned out to be a godsend and presumably not an opportunity everybody gets. Her friend was hosting a birthday party for her (kind of a family gathering) and i was invited along. This was proper hong kong couldnt get the tube here...it involved two buses and a lift from some dude who was also going to the party. It was basically flats in the hills of hong ...

... prevailed and we kept our place in the queue but the Chinese teachers were not impressed Nether was the policeman involved.<br><br>The rest of the tour went well and we returned to our hotel for lunch. <br><br>After lunch we toured a Tibetan monk monastery just out of town. Then back to hotel for early night. Our Driver Lee and guide Sarah could not have done more for us over the past two days we will miss them.

... s Tibetan communities, we left equipped with snacks for the vast tracts of land we would now be covering for the rest of our trip. We were driving to Gyantse, some 240kms to the southwest of Lhasa. Stunning brown mountains were soon rippled with black waves, all with many contours, definitions and form - truly stunning - while we snaked alongside the Kyl-chu river on the Friendship Highway. We had to go over the Kambu-la Pass (4,700m), where the 'authorities ...

... lyrics but at least they make sense! Call this a normal Christmas Song? Surely they can't have heard it! But now it all makes sense. Now they very much have the script for National Treasure Part III. But sadly because of me everyone now knows the ending. The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus mate! Sheezus, I had to give it away didn't I! Heaven forbid! PSS: There are a heap of photos at the end like usual ...

... around the lake, but is submerged in one part, so we can only walk on one side of the lake. The rain and mist we began to notice at the bottom of the stairs increases its density to a thick fog over the lake. It reminds me of Southeast Alaska until an occasional occasional a breeze lifts the fog like an artist unveiling a statue and we glimpse autumnal trees and ultra clear water. Along the path we find prayer offerings. Some are clearly Buddhist ...

... and Ian found out from them that there was another bus station further down the street. I tried to buy a ticket from the kiosk, and after much tooing and frooing and phoning the police they made negative gestures that clearly indicated they couldn't sell me a ticket. The lady in charge came out and of the kiosk and tried to explain something in Chinese, pointing in the same direction up the street that Ian had dissapeared in. After much manic gesticulations and ...

The China holiday is over. Some overachiever in the party decided that the place would be safer during the Olympics if they got rid of all extraneous foreigners, especially the lowlifes with my type of business visa. So they gave me the boot. Seems like a good time to share China's transportation methods. This week, ceremonies were held for the opening of the Beijing-Tianjin suburban high speed railway. Shanghai ...

... sirens, cars, trains and ship horns wailed in grief as the people fell silent. Chinese President Hu Jintao, top legislator Wu Bangguo, Premier Wen Jiabao, and other top leaders including Jia Qinglin, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang also stood in silence in the central government compound of Zhongnanhai in Beijing. At the Tian'anmen square where the national flag flies at half post, thousands of people shouted "Brave and strong, China ...

... first. I forgot to mention something funny that happened when I got here from Xiahe. On the way to the hotel I saw a Chinese dude with pink hair, like Japan style or something. This was definitely the first time I've seen anything of the sort in the maybe 6 months total I've spent in China, so I pointed it out to the guy driving me, who I mentioned in my last post. He said, "That guy is clearly absorbing you foreigners' influence." It was ...

... the world! By this stage, we are feeling a bit more confident of hanging in, and start considering our Hami options. The woman in the next seat has decided to take charge of us, and as we enter Hami proper, points out the station, and what we think she says is the bus station for Dunhuang. We remember what it looked like, then hang in for a long while, through wide, modern without being first-world streets, to the bus station. We also ask her if she knows a ...