Monday 13^th January, 2020 1000 Waiting to depart Lanzhou-Tianshui

Alice arrived on Friday night at 1920 but it took us over an hour to make the short trip to my place because we went to collect our prepaid tickets for this journey.

She was in raptures over my minestrone and I thought she was going to give birth when she tasted my first ever attempt at a ginger cake, which was actually uncannily similar to offerings from Mr Kipling.

On Saturday I never felt like cooking (besides breakfast for her) and so we went to “26 Inch Station”, the place I walked out of a long time ago when the kid serving said not to get drunk before we'd even had a drink. The only reason we returned was because I fancied the assorted sausage platter.

This time they had beer and wine available so we both had a Bud, chilled the Lanzhou way by adding ice to your glass. I ordered chips, bacon and cheese stuffed potatoes and the platter. I doubt I shall return.

The chips were fine but the potatoes, far from being as per the picture (and the way I had them the very first time I went with Jody), seemed (and tasted) as if someone had scooped out a little potato, added mascarpone and Whiskas and shovelled it on top. Awful. Then the platter arrived. Except it was assorted pieces of chicken! It was returned and eventually our sausages arrived.

From memory, both in the menu picture and when I first had them, there should have been five different types of sausage, all from different countries. Here there were just two – the American one I don't like and a skinny, pencil-type one that was quite tasty. Of the other three varieties there was no sign, they had simply given us bigger amounts of less.

Now yesterday when I awoke, quite aside from the agony of my ribs, I felt nauseous, and did so all day. I couldn't blame the previous night's food because Alice had eaten far more of it than me so it is a mystery. It meant that I was in no mood to make the roast pork dinner I had planned, or anything else for that matter. Alice was quite content with that, she wanted to climb Five Streams Mountain (incidentally there are no streams whatsoever) and it gave her chance to have beef noodles in town alone, she loved them last time she came.

So yesterday I ate the sum total of a meagre slice of ginger cake.

Between bladder and ribs, I spent a fitful night, getting at most five hours sleep. I rose at 0545 (the alarm was set for seven), which worked quite well. I am sure everyone knows an injury hurts like the devil when you wake up but during the day with pain relief it's much better. I needed to make myself “comfortable” before we made the trip to the train station.

Despite not feeling hungry I knew I needed to get something inside me. Burger King in the station beckoned, specifically because I had no idea what they did for breakfast, if anything. A fair selection and I chose a Whopper with pork, cheese and bacon over a ham, egg and cheese muffin, particularly because of the bacon. Sadly, it seems to be universal here that bacon is merely shown the hob for long enough for it to warm above room temperature and then is plonked on the burger. The result is of course, a mouthful of soggy fat. I managed about a third of it while Alice, who had an hour previously partaken of eggs on toast, got rid of another third of it. Next time it will be muffins all the way!

Just in time for the spring festival human migration, a new e-system for train tickets has been rolled out in order to make boarding quicker. Naturally, the long-suffering foreigner cannot purchase his e-ticket at the automated machines but hey! It's going to be great to simply present your passport to a scanner to access the train platform, right?

Nope. It is now worse than it was in the first place for me! Whereas previously I bought a ticket and to board shoved it in the slot to open the barrier, now I have to go and see an official, show my passport AND a printout of the e-ticket!

Ah well, we are on our way to the second largest city in Gansu. I wonder if we will find a decent restaurant.