Wednesday 29 October 2025
We hired our Monday driver to run us up to Pingshanhu Grand Canyon today. This geological park is on a par with grand canyons globally and is allegedly one of the world’s five canyons, eg the Giant Canyon of the Colorado and the Great Rift Valley of the East Africa. Fortunately, for us it wasn’t overrun with tourists - in fact, none of the places we visited in Zhangye were, much to our surprise.
On our arrival, we sat in the car negotiating via translation apps with our driver re: what time we had to leave. An English speaking Singaporean lady stuck her head in to help, and before we knew it, her driver had bought the 3 of us tickets for the park. He said he’d get us a ‘good price’. The usual entry fee was 100 yuan plus 30 for shuttle bus. Because I'm nosy, I'd gone with him to pay and watched him pay 210 for the 3 of us, confirmed by our entry ticket saying 70 yuan on it. I was therefore a little surprised when the Singaporean lady told us her driver said we owed 130 yuan each. Now, I always pay my way, but I do hate a fiddle. Apparently hers and our drivers had sorted it out between them and we were to repay our driver. So I messaged our driver to say we only owed him 70 for the ticket and 30 for the shuttle bus (eg 200 for both of us) as that's what I'd seen being paid. He agreed. I know it was only an extra 30 yuan each that the other driver was charging us, I but I objected to him making a quick buck out of us that way.
Anyway, back to the park (yes, that had irked me!). We only had a few hours and it’s often hard to gauge how long you’ll need. We first walked along a path southwards to ingest the views.
We then headed down the 400 steps or so into the canyon. Amazing scenery awaited us.
As there weren’t many other tourists we managed to avoid getting them in our photos. It was very cold but sunny - hence the natty fleece/sunhat combo.
I obey every sign...
It was wonderful walking in the base of the gorge.
We were never really alone as there were fake stones/trees around with not-so-hidden security cameras.
This jeep was fun!
It was a steady climb out of the canyon. If we’d had longer I would have gone around it again, as there was an exciting, alternative route out, involving a squeeze up a crevice and vertical ladder. However, we’d given it a miss when we passed it as it shortened the canyon valley walk too much and we wanted to spend our time down there. Next time huh?
Back to the car and it was a one hour drive back to Zhangye to catch our train. I caught up on lunch - car snacks Ruth style.
We arrived 2 hours early for our train and fortuitously found a coffee shop to perch in for an hour. The cards came out and JC won crib :-(. He also found Harry Potter, mandarin style.
The train to Lanzhou took 3 hours and went through the Qilian mountain range.
We had some wonderful snowy views.
We have travelled over half the width of China in 5 trains over 2 weeks!
In Lanzhou we were suddenly in a metropolis. Gone were the smaller stations we’d been used to, consisting of 4 or so platforms. This one had 26 and was the size of an airport. It took us a while to find our hotel. Pedestrian access from the station to the urban area was via a roundabout-shaped bridge over the highway, but it was only half finished. So, instead of being a dazzling walkover, we ended up beside a main road for half of it.
On entering our hotel we were pleased at how nice and fancy it was, only to be advised that we were in the wrong part and should have been in the budget end of it which was out to the side. By budget it meant no room service, no turn downtown service and no breakfast, which hardly made it bad at all. And we were only there for under 12 hours.
We got in the lift only to be joined by the seemingly autonomous hoover which was on its way to floor 11.
Although it was gone 21:00 we needed some food so popped around the corner for beef and noodles (JC), rice and veg (me). Total cost under £5. We will find it hard to get used to not eating this cheaply!
This is where we were now, albeit briefly.
