Don’t Trust That Internet

Last year I went from Lanzhou to Xiahe, a Tibetan stronghold, by bus. I had read in a book about the Silk Road that this would involve an “eight hour hair-raising bus trip” and looked forward to it greatly, having never really been hovering between life and death since I was in Tibet in 2007.

That bus trip turned out to be a four hour visually incredible, completely smooth ride, since a new road had of course been built since that Englishman, the author of the book, had sat shaken and rattled on the three wheel contraption that brought him to wonderful Xiahe all those years ago (about five).

So I knew about that bus and where to find it – so why did I then idiotically go on the electronic internet to find more information about the bus journey? Something about last year’s total bore in trekking down the road near the bus station for hundreds of meters to have our passports copied for some insurance scam they run from the bus station for everybody going to Xiahe. After all, a town full of Tibetan Buddhist monks is bound to be so fraught with peril that everyone needs extra insurance issued by.. crooks.

So when I saw on the internet that we could go there by one two-hour bus ride and then another two-hour bus ride instead, changing buses half way, I was all for it. No little jumped up officials with clipboards shouting about “pa-si-poh” and “you pay money!”. What I failed to notice was that nobody had written about actually taking the two buses.

Well, now we have. We left the hotel at 6.30AM thinking it would get us into Xiahe at mid day at the very latest, a nice day in Tibet and back to Lanzhou in the evening.

Yeah right. The first bus did indeed take 2.5 hours, only 30 minutes later than the internet promised. But the second! People, if you want to go to the Labrang Monastery I urge you to pay for the scam. Have copies of your passport already on you, even. For instead of a leisurely four hour super scenic smooth ride, we got an eight hour ordeal where the bus drove down every back road and stopped at every petrol station, begging passengers to come onboard.

By the time we finally reached Xiahe at 3.20PM, we had exactly 25 minutes to see the town before getting on the last bus back to Lanzhou at 3.45. Excellent! Naturally we chose to take a taxi all the way back later in the day.

Amazingly, this is also not recommended! The driver might be great at negotiating the bends and yak-herds around Xiahe, but on the four-lane highway he was clearly lost, veering all over the road as if not sure what a lane was, and also at one point almost crashing into a bunch of traffic cones closing off one lane (I had to grab his arm and yank the steering wheel) because he was busy texting.

He completely missed the rather large sign saying “This way to LANZHOU” and ended up in a tollgate where he didn’t pay but doubled back, only to be caught and severely chastised by evil jumped-up official with clipboard at the next tollgate, where he was threatened with a 720 yuan fine. It all got rather ugly and more than a little boring.

Yes, there is a perfectly good bus from Lanzhou to Xiahe leaving at 7.30AM from Lanzhou South Bus terminal every day. Take it! It’s SO worth it. But if you’re looking for adventure and also feel your patience needs a little work-out: Go with Lonely Planet and the electronic internet. There you’ll get excellent advice from people who have never actually tried what they’re recommending …