TianShui + ChengXian
This weekend we went down to TianShui(Sky Water), a city about 4 hours by bus southeast of here, to meet up with the Rosses. Michelle and Thad's site is ChengXian, a small town another 2 hours past TianShui, but they'd come into the city to celebrate Thad's 30th. That area of Gansu is totally different than up here around Lanzhou. It is much wetter there, and all the greenery and trees were almost shocking when we first arrived! The views as we bused down were gorgeous. I had been napping early on, and when I awoke, felt like I'd passed through a picture into "real" China as we passed traditional earth homes around courtyards and backed by lush terraced hills.
Our bus, as we discovered right before it exited TianShui, was a thru-bus, and we hopped off just in the nick of time before it passed through the far set of tolls. We walked back towards town and grabbed a taxi, asking for the bus station... a nod and a grunt later and we were headed back into town. About 3 minutes down the road, the taxi driver asked us which bus station. Uhhhh, we'd like to go to Lanzhou, we hedged. 10 minutes later we were at the correct station, and after explaining to the bus hawkers, informed by the taxi driver that we were going to Lanzhou, that we were NOT in fact headed back to Lanzhou yet, Michelle and Thad came out and we were off. We spent the rest of a perfect sunny and warm day oggling the adorable kids attached by the wrist to ballons as big as they were, being oggled by everyone else in town, buying DVD's & cotton-candy, and generally strolling.
As it turned dusky, we grabbed the last four seats on the short bus to ChengXian. This involved the Rosses and I squeezing onto fold down aisle-seats and Ben sitting on a stool, in front of which was another stool, with a man who somehow edged backwards until by the end of the 2.5 hour ride, Ben had a handy spooning partner up there. Which was a good thing as the v
iew out the front window must have been terrifying judging from the amount of swerving we were doing as we went up and over and around and down the mountains to ChengXian. I had my own special bus buddies farther back in the bus. Check out in particular the pincer effect going on from the guy behind me who occasionally tipped all the way forward and only woke up when his forehead ran into my back, and the guy on my left who never actually woke up no matter how many friendly shoves propped him upright for a moment here and there. Apparently my picture self finds it awkwardly-funny
In ChengXian we ate one of the local specialties called mashi (sp?) which both resembles and tastes like the creation of a chinese cook who maybe studied in Italy for a few years. It involved little pasta-ish shells, tofu chunks, potatos, veggies, and is delicious! CX is a really small town, and Thad
and Michelle's students will achieve a teaching degree in three years and mostly head back to the villages that they come from to teach. Walking back into town the next morning we crossed a bridge over the town's distinctive river. Wide, but with many small channels running between reeds and mudbanks where a few kids played, women washed, old men fished, and a few hardy souls picked their way across.
The ride back to TianShui the next day was gorgeous! I got to see the homes and fields and mountains that I'd missed on the way in the night before. Every home was dressed for fall, covered in golden corn laid out to dry on every available surface, and strung with garlands of drying peppers. Wild cotton grew on the slopes by the road, with goats and cows munching away beside them, apparently unperturbed by their precariously steep positions. When we reached TianShui, the bus left us off in a part of town we didn't recognize, but after some mildly garbled conversations with the bus driver, he assigned another passenger who was heading to the bus station to take care of us, and we made it there and onto a big bus headed back to Lanzhou with little difficulty. Two and a half hours later the bus left us off on the highway outside of DingXi and we walked into town. A bus-some weekend, but it was wonderful to see a little more of Gansu in the fall, and great to hang out with the Rosses (happy 30th, Thad!!).
Our bus, as we discovered right before it exited TianShui, was a thru-bus, and we hopped off just in the nick of time before it passed through the far set of tolls. We walked back towards town and grabbed a taxi, asking for the bus station... a nod and a grunt later and we were headed back into town. About 3 minutes down the road, the taxi driver asked us which bus station. Uhhhh, we'd like to go to Lanzhou, we hedged. 10 minutes later we were at the correct station, and after explaining to the bus hawkers, informed by the taxi driver that we were going to Lanzhou, that we were NOT in fact headed back to Lanzhou yet, Michelle and Thad came out and we were off. We spent the rest of a perfect sunny and warm day oggling the adorable kids attached by the wrist to ballons as big as they were, being oggled by everyone else in town, buying DVD's & cotton-candy, and generally strolling.
As it turned dusky, we grabbed the last four seats on the short bus to ChengXian. This involved the Rosses and I squeezing onto fold down aisle-seats and Ben sitting on a stool, in front of which was another stool, with a man who somehow edged backwards until by the end of the 2.5 hour ride, Ben had a handy spooning partner up there. Which was a good thing as the v
iew out the front window must have been terrifying judging from the amount of swerving we were doing as we went up and over and around and down the mountains to ChengXian. I had my own special bus buddies farther back in the bus. Check out in particular the pincer effect going on from the guy behind me who occasionally tipped all the way forward and only woke up when his forehead ran into my back, and the guy on my left who never actually woke up no matter how many friendly shoves propped him upright for a moment here and there. Apparently my picture self finds it awkwardly-funnyIn ChengXian we ate one of the local specialties called mashi (sp?) which both resembles and tastes like the creation of a chinese cook who maybe studied in Italy for a few years. It involved little pasta-ish shells, tofu chunks, potatos, veggies, and is delicious! CX is a really small town, and Thad
and Michelle's students will achieve a teaching degree in three years and mostly head back to the villages that they come from to teach. Walking back into town the next morning we crossed a bridge over the town's distinctive river. Wide, but with many small channels running between reeds and mudbanks where a few kids played, women washed, old men fished, and a few hardy souls picked their way across.The ride back to TianShui the next day was gorgeous! I got to see the homes and fields and mountains that I'd missed on the way in the night before. Every home was dressed for fall, covered in golden corn laid out to dry on every available surface, and strung with garlands of drying peppers. Wild cotton grew on the slopes by the road, with goats and cows munching away beside them, apparently unperturbed by their precariously steep positions. When we reached TianShui, the bus left us off in a part of town we didn't recognize, but after some mildly garbled conversations with the bus driver, he assigned another passenger who was heading to the bus station to take care of us, and we made it there and onto a big bus headed back to Lanzhou with little difficulty. Two and a half hours later the bus left us off on the highway outside of DingXi and we walked into town. A bus-some weekend, but it was wonderful to see a little more of Gansu in the fall, and great to hang out with the Rosses (happy 30th, Thad!!).
posted by Kristen at
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
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