Day 7 8.2
Early in the morning, I went to the sculpture office of the Xi'an Silk Group to hold a unique out-of-town ceremony and issue clearance documents. Let's go to Lanzhou, -.
Traveling by high-speed rail, the journey became more and more western, and the green hills of my hometown became huge "mounds of earth".
The high-speed train from Xi'an to Lanzhou University is not too long, and the scenery on the way is not legendary. Before entering the west, although I had made some mental preparations, it would be difficult to understand the situation.
But I'm originally from the economically underdeveloped Yunnan province and didn't have much to worry about. I thought I was probably about the same as where I came from.
Lanzhou, it's a really chaotic city with bad air. That was my first impression of Lanzhou. I had just left Xi'an and the difference between the two was so great.
When we got off the high speed train, we waited for a cab for almost an hour. On the way to the hotel by car, I really admired the driver's skill and rampage. Several times I felt like I almost broke down.
But after three cab rides in one night, I realized that this is the norm for driving in Lanzhou.
Traffic in the western city of Lanzhou is still developing and really messy. The streets are full of construction sites, which is an inevitable process.
Drivers are brutal, and it seems like it's hard to move an inch in the land without hitting it brutally. Another sign of chaos: sidewalks have become "paved streets.
This phenomenon appeared in the Yellow River Iron Bridge near the street. This section of the street is supposed to be the main street of Lanzhou, but it is completely occupied by stalls.
Unlike other cities, this seems to be normal in Lanzhou, without the city crowd. Clothes, Korean makeup, and even manicures live on this crowded sidewalk.
Lanzhou feels behind Kunming to me. A lot of hospitality, big box stores, wholesale clothing markets, trade city, so it feels like there are some old sayings that can be found everywhere in Lanzhou. Randomly strolling a few roadside stores, the products lack cutting-edge elements.
The first time I saw the Yellow River, there was a yacht advertisement on the shore, "Boat sailing on the blue waves, people in the world of painting and newspaper traveling." The phrase amused me. This is obviously the Yellow River water. Where do the blue waves come from?
Lu Ning Snack Street is a specialty snack street in Lanzhou, and most of it is also Hui food. The street is short, narrow and sturdy. I did sample some delicious and affordable food like eggs, milk and fermented grains.
Day 8.3
It's a five or six hour drive in the morning to get to the Dapanshan viewpoint, but I couldn't stay ten minutes. It was too cold! At an elevation of 3760, it was really cold.
Before we even got out of the car, the natives came around and asked us to buy their garlands, saying, "Sister, earn us some tuition!" I froze and refused. Even though their skin was dark and chapped from the cold and intense UV rays, which made it a little uncomfortable, I instinctively refused. On the way back, I thought hard about it. Should I buy something I don't need in order to "help them"? It reminded me of the time I went to the beach with Hao and was morally kidnapped to buy flowers. Suddenly I hated this kind of exploitation of other people's sympathy.
It's a social mentality: the strong have to have compassion for the weak and try to help them.
In this case, I was the strong one in their eyes, and I was supposed to buy something I didn't want, of unequal value, in order to help them. Then I went out of town and found out that in some areas of the Northwest there is quite a bit of this kind of business practice. People like to use things like: help us out, it's not easy, etc. as sales openers. However, they are simple. They're just trying to sell something, but they're not cheating or coercing. This is much better than those vendors in Baekseong Beach who always use flowers as a lead-in to buy and sell. Was it my heart that was too hard? Stand in a safe place and think about your behavior with a mind that has nothing to do with you. But I still think that buying a wreath doesn't change anyone's living situation, it just makes them content to make money off of tourists instead of focusing on developing an industry that can actually support their families.
After arriving at Menyuan in the afternoon, the rapeseed flowers in Menyuan have wilted, overlooking the snow-covered mountains, and the greenery is something else.
Night stay Qilian. Come to Qilian is already seven and a half o'clock. The sun has not yet gone down, but the weather is very cold. Qilian is a county town, but worse than Qubei.
Eating in a Sichuan restaurant, the couple are from Chengdu. They have been in Qilian for twenty years. They don't speak Mandarin, we communicate in Sichuan.
In the meantime, the man took his daughter to clean up, but I realized that the restaurant hadn't been cleaned for a long time.
The original white walls were yellowed and the water in the basin was dirty. Although it was Sichuan cuisine, there were actually very few dishes, and my mom only ate dumplings.
Though I wondered why they chose to uproot themselves from their homeland and come to this place, only to stay there for twenty years.
But after asking if he was a soldier, there were no more detailed questions. The price of kiran was not high, white cakes were only a dollar.
Qilian, known as the wonderland, really makes me feel a bit dreamy. Because it was too cold!
In the square of this small county, there is no big mothers get together to dance square dance, everyone almost all wearing cotton jacket, which makes my first visit to wear shorts is very embarrassing, along the way received a lot of strange looks. This, combined with the lack of people on the streets, made it even more chilly.
There are a lot of Tibetans in Qilian, and almost all the stores, the local tax office and the national tax office speak Tibetan in addition to Chinese.
That was my first thought. Later, on the way back, I met a teacher who had lived in Gansu for many years. We talked about our understanding of Gansu.
He told me that he spent the fall and winter in Qilian, so even the summer was so cold. Life is really not easy. Is there such a wonderland in this world?
In this place, it is not the largest number of Tibetans or Hui people, but an ethnic group between Tibetans and Hui.
Day 9, 8:04 a.m.
Sunrise at Mt. Zhor.
This was my second time out to see the sunrise. I got up early but I couldn't see the sunrise because of the clouds. The coldness of Qilian was seen the day before. Today for the first time in August, I wore a down jacket. When the sun shone on the snowy mountains, I remembered what Fu Zhen used to write about Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, the Golden Dome.
Zhuoer Mountain is beautiful, but not absolutely beautiful.
On the way, I came to Arou Temple, a small Tibetan Buddhist temple. Most tourists like to take photos of special places, such as transepts and sutra streamers. However, few people seriously understand its culture and wisdom. Arou Monastery is not a very heavily traveled place and maintains a relatively pristine look. It was an area we knew absolutely nothing about. The trip was heavy on the Silk Road, but not without exploring faith along the way. I saw Tibetan women chanting around a building and Tibetan children. I was reminded of a quote from a Xi'an ticket agent: "We know very little, but the unknown is endless. We can get lost in the sea of knowledge, and much guides us like a primer to discover and explore." Along the way, I knew very little, but it opened door after door of knowledge for me. After that it was up to me to learn, to consult, to explore.
The knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism is mentioned in detail in the chapter on the Thar Monastery in Xining.
Summary: Compared to previous places, the West does bring a clash of mind and vision.
With the inconvenience of transportation, it brings inconvenience to our travel, but it also brings something that is not found in the developed areas in the east.
In fact, human feelings are all over the world, and stories are everywhere.