The Way to Xining

Up at 5am, taxi at 5:45, airport at 6:30 for a 8am internal flight. Plenty time? Nope, we ended up running for the plane but only after our brand new, ‘flying compliant’, power banks were confiscated. What a bummer. For interest (or not), row 31 was the first row in economy behind two business class rows. Naturally I barrelled past it! We’d a good flight though and Lanzhou airport is new, huge and easy to navigate. It’s also almost an hour’s packed train ride from town, our first train journey of many on this Silk Road trip. The second train took us to Xining and the blip reflects our first views of this area’s landscape. The urban landscape is sadly familiar - tower blocks of flats everywhere. We quickly headed out to Kumbum bhuddist monastery for a wee touch of the local culture then back to town for some scran. We’re bushed.