langmusi

xiahe

lanzhou - lingxia

at about 7 in the morning i arrived lanzhou. i was in best mood to explore the flair of the city by foot before i was leaving on a bus to linxia. first i found my most favourite breakfast: lamian. ahhhh, it was so good! then i strolled around saw the city awaking. when the supermarkets opened i bought some food for the busdrive and then wanted to find the west-busstation. it was easy by foot and with bus. after i arrived i found it a bit empty. a lady behind the counter explained to me that the buses to lingxia now leave only from the new south-busstation. she explained the way. it was a long way through hot and dusty streets in the morning rushhour. when i finally arrived with all my big luggage i asked exhausted to buy a ticket. the lady told me i could not buy one. i asked "why?" and she just turned to serve the chinese people next to me. she didn't pay attention to me at all. who knows me knows that this kind of behaviour makes me angry. so i spoke german to her and explained her in german that i would stay in front of her desk until she explains me the reason why i can't go. after a while i started in chinese again and asking again why i could not go. i told her it would be not polite just not to talk to me. then her colleague gelt sorry for me and talked to her. she then explained me that i could go, but i would need 2 copies of my passport. so i went to a copyshop, returned and then i got on the next bus leaving immediately. a few days later i learned that foreigners are still forbidden to travel to xiahe from lanzhou (the riots in tibet last year). due to this reason they try to go there over lingxia. that's why she didn't want to let me go.
lingxia is a city wih mainly hui-population. it seems they don't see many foreigners there. most hotels offer dorms, but they won't give it to a foreigner. as i was explained by a friend later the police doesn't allow it. lingxia has a lot to offer for tourists. if you go there you should visit the red park. besides the environment around the city is just like a fairyland with it's colourful mountains and the anxient tools the farmers are still using. i went for a nice hike to a temple in the afternoon and on my way back by chance i found the only english speaking bar (red-park-bar) in the city. manager mark is a really nice, helpful and charming guy. he suggested me a place to go to on the next day. so i took the bus and went there. quickly i was out of the city. in a village i got off the bus and started wandering for a couples of hours. people were cutting wheat by hand, used horse carts to bring the harvest home, herded sheeps, bundled hay and old men played chinese chess in the shadow of the trees. in the evening i took the bus back to the city. the food for me on this days was the delicious pita-bread, zhaomian, peaches and strawberry-ice. the next day i left to xiahe.

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