Mike Chrisp

We met up again with Lao Bei and he had brought a friend with him, Lao Wu. Eventually all the gear was loaded and we left ZhengZhou at 8:15. We had a long journey ahead of us. Approximately 1300 kilometres of driving before we reached our first over night stop - Lanzhou. After we were out of the city we joined the Toll Expressway, which would take us to Ian and beyond.

Along the way the to Louyang we kept seeing caves carved into the rock and clay deposits. There were hundreds of them. Normally used as summer residences during the hottest time of the year. By the roadside every ten or so kilometres there would be a woman sweeping the verges (shoulders) with a long broom.

We caught our first sight of the Huang He (Yellow River) through the haze. The air was filled with dust, which we could taste. We passed out of Henan Province and entered Shaanxi. The Expressway carried on relentlessly towards Xi'an where we stopped for a meal.

During the journey we had been getting to know both Lao Bei and Lao Wu. They tried to teach us some Chinese and Tim's Mandarin phrase book proved invaluable. We of course left it in the Nissan jeep at our first service station so our newfound knowledge was stretched to the limit.

We stopped twice for fuel and continued westwards through the occasional Toll Booth passing Baoji before entering Gansu Province. You could quite literally draw a line across the road as the road surface deteriorated and became rutted, broken up and full of potholes. There were road workers everywhere. We were delayed twice for major construction work the first time putting us back over an hour when an avalanche covered the road. Workers high up on the hillside above had set this off. A large front loader busied itself to eventually clear a way through. The second was at a constriction where a truck had broken down at the same point and the road crew operated a stop and go system.

All the time we were driving along the Huang He and then the Wei He, we could only marvel at the railway construction with cuts and tunnels and impressive bridges. The roadway was also a feat of engineering with some very impressive looking bridges and long tunnels.

We arrived in Tianshui at 8 pm and pulled in to the first decent looking hotel to check if they had any vacancies. Lao Bei had to reverse the jeep to avoid a crowd of people standing on the corner straight into a taxi drawn up immediately behind us. We all piled out to check what had happened. The Front indicator glass had been broken and a heated discussion started joined by any one just passing. We became the object of a lot of curious glances and the bolder types came and stood right in front of us to stare.

After over an hour addresses were exchanged and Lao Bei shrugging his shoulders climbed into the driving seat and we disappeared into the town to look for another hotel. We tried four until just after 11 pm we found a place to stay. It was very Chinese. Tim and I just wanted to sleep but Lao Bei could not believe we just wanted to crash out (we had probably only had ten hours sleep in the last three days).

There was a knock on the door. We ignored it at first but after the third and more insistent hammering we opened the door to a girl with a large can of air freshener. She spoke to us but we did not understand. Then she held out the can and waved it about.

"Ah dwee! (yes) Shing." (Okay)

She walked around and sprayed the can in every corner. Satisfied she then left. "Xiexie," (Thanks) we said as she left.

A little later and there was another knock on the door. Would we never be allowed to get to sleep! It was Lao Bei. He walked in with two dehydrated meals. We just had to add boiling water. We thought he felt uncomfortable about us not eating.

After that we had a rainstorm with thunder and lightning. The rain fell like stair rods, heavy and loud. We retired to bed hopeful that the storm would clear the air and just perhaps allow us to have better views.

—Mike Chrisp

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