Day 17: Xi’an to Lanzhou


After the fabulous experience of Terracotta Army sculptures yesterday, we started we started at 8:30 am from hotel at Xi’an.

The journey was good. We had pooris from Singapore sent by Aditi’s mummy and we took them for lunch. We had poori – sabji yesterday for lunch and dinner. We have enjoyed home cooked food specially made by Aditi’s mother for us. We had sumptuous meals after so many days.

The drive was beautiful. ‘More the merrier’ proved exactly true. With Aditi and Avya joining us, there was lot of talks, games and noise. Aviv became busy with his baby sister Avya joining us. They played a lot. There was demand for a movie from children. They enjoyed the children movie.
Today we have fixed a big bag on the top of the vehicle. We shifted 5 of the bags kept in the car rear seat to this big bag on the roof of the vehicle. The fixing of the big bag and shifting the bags therein was very tiring work. Now that the bag is fixed, it will be easier work every day. This was necessitated as the car had two more passengers joining us. Anupam was very tired and had to take a short nap in the afternoon.

We have travelled more than 8000 kms. till now.  The roads in China are very good. There is no difficulty at all. The police checking of our vehicle is done mostly when we cross one province to another. This may be done because we have foreign vehicle number plate and we show the temporary vehicle number plate allotted to us in China. The toll is to be paid few times daily as we are driving on highways most of the time.  

From Xi’an we are moving on old famous Silk Road. This was the road which was used by traders for their trade to Europe, Central Asia and other parts of Asia in ancient times. So, we are travelling now on historic road.We saw many trucks on the way. It seems that the goods traffic on this road is very high.

The city of Lanzhou was the first city to face attacks from outsiders from West side. It is very important centre for Garrison for China due to its location.  

Lanzhou is capital and the largest city in Gansu province in Western China. It is situated on the banks of Yellow River, which is second largest river of China. The Lanzhou has population of 3 million (30 lakhs).

Tomorrow we plan to reach Zhangye which is about 500 kms. from here. We plan to start early so that we reach Zhangye well in time to see the famous rainbow there.

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