My interest in Lanzhou, as with much of my fascination with China, came from images in geographical magazines. Photos revealed the iron girded 234-meter long Zhongshan Bridge spanning the Yellow River. Completed in 1909, this was the first permanent structure across that river, replacing a "roadway" laid over a series of floating pontoons.

Books I would go on to read about the Yellow River highlighted Lanzhou's geographical importance. China's river systems were a source of considerable interest, inducing me to pore over atlases, following their routes from high upland glaciers eventually discharging into the Bohai Gulf or Yellow Sea.

On flights out of Lanzhou's Zhongchuanzhen Airport in the mid '90s, I would look down pensively at a dry, lightly settled landscape. Today that airport is connected with the city by high-speed rail, a by-product of recent construction that links Lanzhou efficiently and rapidly with Xinjiang on the borders with Kazakhstan. Unfortunately no such services existed when I first reached Lanzhou in 1996, traveling by rail from Xining in Qinghai. It was a conventional train all the way, which I admit I did enjoy.