There are gas masks in my hotel room in Yongdeng. I find that quite strange. For my comfort and my safety&#8230;.  Fortunately, I have not used these gas masks.
So far I haven&#8217;t met any cyclists, although I&#8217;ve been on the road for a good two weeks now. But finally, a rider approaches me and in the next village we get to know each other. We both want to cycle along the Hexi Corridor and decide to continue together.  Kofu is a 60-year-old Chinese man who until recently worked as an electrical engineer. Now he wants to enjoy the third phase of his life and travels his country by bicycle. With very little luggage, it seems. Nevertheless, Kofu has a tent with him. Arriving in Gulang in the evening, he wants to camp. It is around 4 degrees and the weather is bad. I convince him to spend the night in the same hotel as I intend to. As he obviously has a very small budget, I offer him his room for one night, which he accepts with great pleasure.  After checking in, we enjoy a delicious dinner with chopsticks and a lively conversation ensues. As it is now really late and there are even reports of snowfall for the next day, we finally agree to give the steel donkeys a rest tomorrow. Kofu explains to me during the further planning of the route, wild camping is officially not allowed for foreigners! They should not set up tents anywhere in the open space without a police permit. Well, I&#8217;ve already found that out so far, and sometimes for me as a foreigner it&#8217;s not even possible to spend the night in a hotel, I let him know.  Somehow he doesn&#8217;t quite want to understand that. But never mind! Kofu wants to give me a night in a tent, because there should be no problem with him. OK, I&#8217;m curious about that.
After the rest day, the weather shows its beautiful side again and the trip is fun for the two of us. We make very good progress. At the end of the day, after 170 km, we look for a suitable place for the tent but did not find one. Even Kofu thinks it would be better to spend the night in a hotel again. Look, there&#8217;s already one and in we go&#8230;. To his dismay, however, I am not wanted with my citizenship. Voilà, there you go. Even his oratory skills don&#8217;t change anything. I grab my mobile phone and search for hotels on Trip.com and find one where both are welcome&#8230; A bit more expensive, but we take a double room and share the costs. Unfortunately, I overdid it a bit today with the big gears and the lead work. My knees are hurting badly. That why I decide from now on it is more sensible for me to ride at my own pace again and to make sure I pedal at a high cadence and with a low gear ratio. In the city pharmacy in Yongchang there are Voltaren tablets and a spray with a miracle cure in it.  The next day Kofu continues on his own and I take care of my knee with a bike-free day and from now I am serious with the important exercises for my joints every day again. I also take the black roll out of my luggage to work on my facial muscles and use the miracle spray for my knee. All this mixture obviously works out.
After two more days of riding through the valley of the Hexi Corridor, which has been a long time ago the only western passage in and out of China, I am reaching a town called Zhangye. Worth to visit here is the Geopark, where there are hundreds of rainbow mountains to admire. Some of the mountains appear so unreal that you think they were artificially built. But the coloured rocks are natural and real. Shuttle buses take visitors to the various platforms from where the different rock formations can be seen. Classical music is played everywhere. An impressive experience.

There are gas masks in my hotel room in Yongdeng. I find that quite strange. For my comfort and my safety&#8230;.  Fortunately, I have not used these gas masks.

Lanzhou – Wuwei – Zhangye

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