Sky water done. Next stop, Zhangye. As mentioned before, there is no high-speed rail between Xi’an and Lanzhou. Instead of crawling along on a slow train from Tianshui to Zhangye, we decided to build in our own transfer. We would ride the slow train from Tianshui to Lanzahou, then change to a high-speed train from Lanzhou to Zhangye. Total train time would be about 7.5 hours, and total travel time about 9 hours with the layover. Above, you can see Cindy patiently waiting for the train at Lanzhou.

Travel days are a good time to sit back and think about everything we’ve done. Watching China pass before our eyes gives us some insight into just how far away from home we are. When we’re neck deep in a Buddhist grotto or walking along the Great Wall, we’re so immersed in the moment that we don’t realize that our families are 8,000 miles away living entirely different lives. But sitting at a train station, or on the train for that matter, is a different experience. Those are the times that make us really feel like we’re traveling.

Case in point, the spectrum of humanity on trains is immense. There are families, peddlers with their wares in enormous bags over their shoulders, business people, and people who don’t quite seem to care where they get off. And Cindy and I are just there to watch all of them. It reminds me a little bit of traveling to some place like New York and Paris and riding their respective metros during rush hour. Everyone is going about their daily business, and I’m some kind of weird candid camera just taking it all in. They’re crushed by their commutes while I’m watching them like a National Geographic photographer filming a herd of zebras.

We arrived at Zhangye a little after 8 PM. A quick taxi ride later and we found ourselves in our hotel. Our itinerary here is to hit up another national park with yet more grottoes, and then some rainbow colored rocks in the vicinity. Zhangye is a village by Chinese standards, at just over 200,000 people. I’m sure they’ll be talking about Cindy weeks after we’ve left.