Sometime back in Oct/Nov 2016, my friends were all telling me where they were going for their December holidays... I had not planned to travel anymore for 2016, since I've visited Myanmar, Japan, US and Canada already, and spent a bomb trying to save dear Gummy.
But the wunderlust side of me started to tickle my soul when PK suggested 七彩丹霞 at 张掖。Then during a very boring sharing session at year-end review, someone commented that Qinghai was missing from our coverage and Jireh told me that he did the 西宁敦煌张掖环线 over the national day holidays.
Meanwhile, 携程 had a sale for round trip tickets for 广州-西宁 : ¥1700. When I booked my tickets I didn't even know which province 西宁 was at. I only knew people started the 环线 here and I booked the tickets anyway.
And tadah here I am in West China !
I'm now sitting at the (totes pathetic) "first class lounge" at the airport waiting for my 2pm flight back to Guangzhou. Honestly I've never felt this happy and grateful that I'm finally gonna make my way back to Gz (I'm not quite a fan of the city I live in). I miss my bed, I miss Cantonese food.
This trip had been a bit too eventful. I started having diarrhoea the moment I checked into my 西宁 hotel last Wednesday, 28 Dec. And the LS continued for the next SIX days - yes, I had diarrhoea for seven days straight 😱 , from Wednesday to Tuesday. I even FAINTED from my diarrhoea on day 4 in 敦煌 - that's 31 Dec 2016, and spent my new year's eve nursing my diarrhoea in bed 😥
In summary, my diarrhoea followed me from 西宁 to 兰州 to 敦煌 to 张掖. My sg stash of diarrhoea medication was neither sufficient nor efficient - I got alright on day 5 after whacking double dosage x2 of the medication, but breakfast on day 6 basically started the whole diarrhoea process again and I was forced to buy dubious Chinese diarrhoea medicine on day 7. The medication took some time to work. So meanwhile my diarrhoea caused me to be LOCKED in the 莫高窟展示厅 toilet because everyone had left the building - I had to break into the information/ticketing counter to look for a directory of numbers to call while my driver outside tried frantically to find someone to open the door for me. Then my FIRST CLASS CABIN on the sleeper train had a BABY who cried for more than an hour and the toilet was SPOILT. I was so grateful when I reached my hotel room at 0315 hours and was finally able to let it all out in peace and comfort omg. I continued to whack double dosage of whatever Chinese medicine it was and by the morning of day 8 I was alright. Never had my tummy felt so fine over the last week. Dubious medication worked after all!
Well, since we were talking about the not so glamorous part of my trip, perhaps I could continue with stories related to this before we get to the more enjoyable parts.
Having diarrhoea all day long meant I didn't have much appetite. And since I suspected it was 水土不服 - the diarrhoea started the moment I started eating, I decided to STOP EATING. This meant that over the last 8 days, the total amount of food I consumed amounted to -
- 4 very small bowls of millet porridge
- 2 half bowls of 牛肉拉面
- about 10 mouthfuls of 张掖搓鱼面
- 6 to 8 muesli bars
- 4 apples
- some 香辣龙虾该饭 from meituan (this was the only decent meal I had)
- unfinished super salty 炖汤 + 蕃茄炒蛋 (I'm very sure this was the meal that caused my major LS from 兰州 onwards) from meituan
- a block of chocolate
Would this be considered semi-starvation?
Another stupid thing that happened was I FLEW from 西宁 to 兰州 😓😥😣, which meant instead of taking 3 hours by car / train, I took more than 12 hours. 兰州 is less than 300km from 西宁 and I did a silly detour of flying through 西安. All thanks to ctrip. Their algorithms must have been down that particular day when I booked my tickets. IT recommended me to fly like this. And I spent the whole day feeling angry w myself for being so stupid.
Now, we can move on to the more enjoyable parts haha.
Qinghai 青海
I only went to 2 destinations in 青海, both in the vicinity of 西宁 Xining, the capital - 塔尔寺 Kambun Monastery and 青海湖 Qinghai Lake. You can do both destinations in one day, which was what I did via a tour I booked from ctrip.
It was inspiring to visit Lama Tsongkhapa's birthplace ☺🙏, to see fellow Buddhists making pilgrimages to the temple for prostrations. One strange thing though was people there offered alcohol to the deities. I guess it's a cultural thing.
Next stop was 青海湖 - it was a scenic drive through the 拉脊山 mountain range ! Highest elevation was 3820m and I felt alright apart from a bit of drowsiness 😃😄 It was empty at the lake, and the four of us from the tour were the only visitors. Guess it's due to winter season and the Lake was semi-frozen. It was beautiful though ❤
What came to mind when I was there was 李白's 汉下白登道, 胡窥青海湾, 由来政战地, 不见有人还.. Such a beautiful place was where many were laid to rest, albeit most probably due to violent deaths in the wars they had fought.
西宁 is populated by the Han, Tibetan and Hui people. I was rather surprised by how much animosity I felt from the Han people against those of the other races. All drivers I had taught me how to identify them and told me to "stay away" from them. 🙁
Lanzhou 兰州
Lanzhou is a major transit point for travelling in the west. Train and flight connectivity here is awesome, which explains why you get international hotel chains here - only IHG though. The most eventful thing that happened here was I ate my 美团外卖 tomato egg with rice and soup dinner which caused major LS thereafter.
There's a mosque 清真大寺, which is supposedly more impressive at night (but I was sick) , the yellow river and the 黄河母亲 statue, 中山大桥, oh and a museum which I didn't manage to visit. 兰州 is also famous for their 牛肉拉面. One other thing to note is Lanzhou city centre is 55km away from the 中川机场 airport, which is freaking far away.
Langzhou is populated by mostly Hui and Han people, and again, I felt animosity from the Han against the Hui. I had to endure almost an hour of "dislike speech" by my driver on the way to the airport 😑
Dunhuang 敦煌
The highlight of my trip!!! It was awesome! I loved almost everything about the place, apart from the food and their sense of time. My hotel was 敦煌山庄 which was totes beautiful ❤, right next to huge sand dunes. The breakfast area was where you can see sunrise over the dunes. Dunhuang was a major node of the silk road, and the grottoes were awesome! Major places to visit include 莫高窟, 鸣沙山, 月牙泉, 雅丹魔鬼城 (to see yardang!), 玉门关 and go star gazing at 无人区
