Qinghai - Part 1

First time we dun have to wake up in the middle of the night to get to our destination. We reached Lanzhou (兰州) at around 0914hrs. Bought our tickets to Xining (西宁) at 1010hrs but the train was delayed till 1040. Also our first time not taking the sleeper compartment. The hard seater tickets were not allocated seats like those of sleepers. We had to fight our way through the available hard seater compartment looking for seats. The "No Smoking" sign seemed to be useless, and even the passengers just spat on the floor. The train was supposed to be fast train but it kept stopping midway from the station. Dun look that fast to me.

 

Finally reached Xining (西宁) at 1500hrs. Since it was the final destination, we took our time to get off the train. No point in squeezing with those passengers who seems dying to get off the train. Finally met my friends outside the station. Took a cab to one of their friend's operated hostel. Sunshine Pagoda Hostel. Lovely place. Nice environment, nice staff. It was located near the main shopping street in Xining (西宁). Since we had another hour and a half to kill before meeting the friends for dinner, we did our usual walkaround. Trying their local self made potato chips. Very hot and spicy, cheap and nice.

 

Had dinner at a rather famous local muslim restaurant. Then headed back to the hostel. Luckily I checked my email, only to discover my flight back to Chengdu (成都)  was cancelled due to bad weather. Had to postpone our flight to saturday afternoon. Only after I agreed to the change did I realised that the air ticket price had been reduced by another 100Y! Damn. My itinerary was fixed by the friend. Due to the additional time in Xining (西宁), the original itinerary had been changed. With that ended my fifteenth day in China.