We arrived in Lanzhou early in the morning and caked in a layer of dirt whilst feeling absolutely shattered. We swore that we would never again take the seats on a long train journey. We made our way to the nearest but oddly enough one of the better hotels just opposite and for somereason got an upgraded room. Our good luck with the accomodation continues!

 We had another Mongolian Hotpot for lunch and then I went to the National Museum where some impressive Silk ROad artefacts supposedly exist only to find that it was closed for renovation works that have taken 2 years so far and are expected to take another 2 more! So we decided to at least enjoy one of Lanzhou's pagoda parks by the yellow river. In fact  yellow is a slightly misleading term and it really is a dark brown colour which is possibly why the city is labelled as the most polluted in the world. Still other than that we actually found it a pleasant place to stay the night before moving on to Kashgar.