Road trip

Around 8am we all met in the lobby of the Guest House and boarded the bus for a week long road trip around Gansu Province. Our first stop was Wuwei, around four hours away. The traffic in Lanzhou city has been a little difficult to get used to, but we have developed a theory that the bigger the vehicle you are travelling in, the more likely it is that you have the right of way. Thus, we felt very safe on the coach!

We had lunch in Wuwei and visited Leitai Si, the place where the town's single most famous object, the Han-dynasty Flying Horse of Wuwei, was discovered in 1969. The horse is the symbol of Chinese tourism and can be seen through-out China. After getting back on the road we got our first look at the Great Wall. This section has not been refurbished like the sections in the East of the country. It is another example of how Gansu is different from the ‘refurbished China’ that most tourists see.

When we arrive in Shandan late in the afternoon it was clear that not many tourists seem to pass through here based on the attention we received attention. After dinner at the hotel we all went for a walk through the small town and soon a small crowd of children gathered behind us. Jeff, Marica and I played and were beaten by some kids at ping-pong. After playing ping-pong for ten minutes the crowd had grown and one of the parents asked if we could sing a song. The only song we could think of was "Do-re-mi" and even though it wasn't exactly top-notch, the crowd clapped anyway!

That was an amazing experience and even-though the kids had very little to play with they made do with what they had and seemed very happy.