The 5000 Project

The transition from Jiuzhaigou to Lanzhou was breathtaking, the terrain started with epically high snow capped mountains, slowly mellowed out to rolling green hills; then the grass turned yellow and in the distance large rocky mountains emerged. The people changed just as quickly as the terrain; we stopped at a tunnel entrance for about half an hour and had the opportunity to get out and look around – there was a family on horseback investigating the traffic jam from the vast field, they wore colourful cloaks and looked quite different from the standard han chinese; they almost looked european. They starred at us like we were the first westerners arriving on their soil.

The change only grew the further north we traveled, yet the han chinese (standard chinese) looked the same; it was quite easy to see how there could be racial conflict if the people categorize themselves in groups segmented by the size of their body and shape of their face.

We arrived in Lanzhou with no idea how to get accommodation, in these parts there are no hostels with dorms, only hotels and expensive hotels – reminded me of areas in south east asia. We befriended a chinese couple who were heading to the university area of the city, they mentioned that there are plenty of cheap hotels in that area, so we followed them on a public bus to the suburb. Unfortunately for us, all the hotels that they recommended did not accept foreigners; I got the address for a possibly hostel, except the information online was very old, we flagged a taxi and hopped in.

The taxi driver dropped us off on the side of a busy road and charged us $5 for the effort, we had no idea where we were but didnt have much choice but to pay and get out. Turns out he dropped us in the middle of nowhere. We admitted defeat and decided to check out hotels that we saw in the city centre that were most probably quite expensive, we were quite wrong. The first hotel that we arrived at had a very impressive looking lobby, we were told that a room with two single beds is only $8 – however the catch was that we had to stay only one night, because they were closing down the next day. Thats right, the entire hhuuggee impressive hotel was closing down for good, to get demolished, we couldnt understand why, until we checked out the room and bathrooms.

The room was ok, but nothing was maintained, everything was falling apart. The men’s communal bathroom was very disgusting, the shower was just a pipe coming out of a wall with no nozzle, the shower door was broken, bits of the wall were falling apart; it was quite evident that the building had to go. It surprised me how amazing the lobby was, when the insides were completely different; it made me think that perhaps many other fancy chinese hotels are similar.

The next day we took a train to Jiayuguan, becuse we didnt have much choice; also there is nothing interesting to see in Lanzhou other than a shitty beach on the side of a huge polluted river which requires an entry fee. Beer stalls in the streets at night were awesome, however.

The main purpose of stopping in Jiayuguan was to check out the great wall from the furthest point west, the town was actually built to support tourism for the wall. We arrived in the town via sitting train, which was a cheap but exhausting experience for a 10hr trip – there are people who pay even cheaper for a standing ticket, however they tend to push into the sitting seats; we had 4 people on a 3 person seat, impossible to get any sleep; especially considering we were in the section where the loud social chinese were, the ones who never seem to sleep but love talking louding and carrying on for 10hrs straight. They loved trying to communicate with us without knowing single word of english, usually this is quite fun, but not when we’re trying to sleep in an unsleepable position.

We arrived very sleep deprived and longing for a place to rest our heads, we took a taxi to the main area where hotels and the likes reside, first option was far too expensive (~$30 for a twin) the second option was a success, paying only $8 each, which we thought was acceptable for the situation. We unpacked and started to shut our eyes as our bodies hit the beds… when there was a knock on the door… the manager decided that we cant stay, we had no idea why, but we had to leave; looks like this is yet another hotel that doesn’t allow foreigners. Out in the cold again, I decided to get to an internet cafe to find some more options. Using the most excellent website http://www.wikitravel.org someone placed a note on the Jiayuguan page with specific instructions to a hotel that only has chinese characters for the name; we made it there and were welcomed to a twin room for only $6! after quite a bit of miming and bartering. Sensibly we named this day the rest day and planned our great wall trek for the following day.

The wall had an entry fee, as is expected, however it was quite impressive even though this segment had been reconstructed, they tried to hide it by putting hay with mud and clay (the foundations of the original wall) over the top of blatant brickwork. The wall seemed to connect the gaps on the outside of an impenetrable rocky mountain range, two additional walls branched into the mountains which were once used for scouting from the tall towers at the ends and to surround any army that would come through the narrow passage in the middle of the mountain range. The wall in this area of china was not actually used to prevent the Mongolians from entering, but to stop any western forces from entering the tang dynasty’s realm. This entrance was also the far north west section of the silk road for china.

We took a sleeper bus at 3am to a town in the gobi desert, an oasis town surrounded by giant sand dunes called Dunhuang.