China Day 13

JaiNo two days are the same when touring China. Breakfastshave frequently been quite challenging as there is no concept of western style breakfasts in the hotels. No cereals, no cold milk, no sausages/bacon etc just Chinese style vegetable dishes.Even tea and coffee can be a challenge. For example, this morning there was a coffee pot but it was empty. Fan our guide was sitting with us so she asked the waitress for the pot to be refilled - the answer was NO! Fran is pretty forceful when it comes to getting things done so she really pushed as only she can but the waitress replied that it had already been refilled twice! Even Fan gave up - but she did complain very loudly to reception later.

Another long drive this morning but again so easy on the 6 lane expressway. The lines of semi-trailers are incredible. Jaiyuguan has a massive steel mill and there was a line of semis 2 or 3 kilometres long waiting to unload their loads of coal. We were again travelling mainly through the Gobi Desert so the landscape was pretty flat apart from a rugged mountain range covered in snow on our left. We passed literally thousands of wind generators on this trip in huge rows but there were also three coal fired power stations and a huge new one under construction. Apparently China has the largest wind/solar system in the world but ut still only supplies 17% of their power. We again saw the blades being transported.

We reached Dunhuang for lunch (too much food again) and then drove out to the nearby Echoing Sand Mountains which is a system of giant sand dunes and so we climbed about 250 - 280 metre high dune just for fun! Pretty challenging but with a few rest stops we made it to the top. Very satisfying. The pictures will asound you.

Off to the local market for dinner tonight. Funnily enough, last night we headed out for dinner in Jaiyuguan and had just about given up when we came across a Korean restaurant advertising Sirloin Steak so in the remote west of China we had our Saturday night steak! It was beautiful too. I also think we might have sorted out the problems with wechat pay so fingers crossed it will do it's job from now on.