Today was one of those days. Rolled off the overnight train at 6:30 and bought a train ticket onwards for 3 nights later, since I was doing a side trip to Xiahe. Then went to the bus station at the other end of town. (Lanzhou is on the Yellow River which could usefully be renamed the Chocolate River.) The bus station wouldn't sell me a ticket without a copy of my passport and visa. So I had to hang around until about 8:15 for a 'shop' to open. With 2 copies in hand I returned to the bus station where they told me there wasn't a bus going to Xiahe that day but I could take the bus to Linxia (3 hours away) and there were buses from there onwards. So off we went. Got to Linxia at about midday only to be told that Xiahe was closed to foreigners. They could sell me a ticket back to Lanzhou though. 3 hours later I was back in Lanzhou, where a taxi-driver/lunatic took me back to the train station. I'd had enough of Lanzhou by this time and managed to change my ticket for an overnight train to Dunhuang. At 6 p.m. we left.
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