Lanzhou

We arrive at Lanzhou after spending a night on the train from Xi'an.

Our first tourist stop is White Pagoda Temple. Frankly, not very impressive. The temple was build in Qing dynasty, so compare to buildings in Xi'an, it is REALLY modern. Also, it is not richly decorated or particularly refine. The saving grace is the view. From atop the temple located on the local hill, one can the Yellow river and both sides of Lanzhou city around it.

Ah yes, the Yellow river. Traditionally considered the birth place of Chinese culture, I finally got to see it for myself! Lanzhou city really does not have much to offer in terms of natural beauty or historical sites, but it does have the Yellow river. The city tries to milk it for all the tourist dollar it is worth.

The next attraction we visited is the "Mother of Yellow River" statue. A fine statue in its own right, but a tourists attraction? You gonna be kidding me! After the statue, we stop by a recreation of water wheel used by locals years ago to drive stone mills. The wheels are huge! More than the height of 2 person, but looked new and artificial:( We were also shown sheep skin rafts where people used to cross the Yellow river with. Since the Lanzhou stretch of the Yellow River is relatively up stream, the river is flowing very fast! I can imagine crossing the river being an interesting ride:)

The famous Lanzhou Ramen was served at lunch. We now have the disadvantage of being with a tour group. The choice of restaurant was probably made more for its capacity than for its food. The beef ramen has a slight numbing spicy kick to it, but did not have the depth of flavor that we had expected. Compare to pho, the flavor was almost too light. The noodles was handmade, but not too well. Some noodle strands are twice as thick as others! Sigh...

The afternoon's activity was a river cruise....like I say, milk it to death...Seriously, it wasn't bad, since it is early autumn and the winds were cool. There was enough sun to keep everyone nicely toasted though:) We saw people actually crossing the river on sheep skin raft, and the above mentioned White Pagoda temple, so it was quite nice. Just that I had hoped to see more historic sites on this trip.