A good idea when visiting a new city is to tap into the treasures of its museum, in this case the Gansu Provincial Museum. There I would catch up on stories of the Silk Road, learning more about the river while discovering traces of settlement locally went back over 7,000 years. Before man, giant mammoths roamed around, as shown by the large skeletal remains unearthed in 1973.

Walking is my favored way of discovering a city — stopping and sitting at a streetside stall while taking in the local scene. Below Wuquanshan, temples feature teahouses with gentle music playing in the background. Nearby alleys were lined with small restaurants, providing my favorite mixture of spicy lamb kebabs roasted over charcoal, Xinjiang bread and with clay pots filled with vegetables and noodles cooked over small fires.

Of course, even at that time Lanzhou was modernizing. New buildings were rising, international brands of restaurants and clothing stores were opening, and outdoor fashion shows contrasted with local people dressed in traditional attire.