day 224: 太平堡 (taipingpu) – 张掖 (zhangye) = 16,9km

I had spent the night at 连先生 (Mr. Lian)’s place. 连先生 owns a little shop next to the road, and he’s also head of the little settlement of 太平堡 (taipingpu):

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Nobody had told me about that the night before though, and I realized it only in the morning when I got up and 连先生 was hosting an event with a bunch of officials from the city:

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It was a formal celebration of the beginning of construction on some new buildings next to the highway:

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The whole village was there:

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Oh, I got so bored after a while though… I guess I’m just not cut out for this kind of ceremony.

It was all speech following after speech, and applause after applause:

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Until an inferno of firecrackers finally marked the end:

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…and when it was all over, the little kids came out of their classrooms and claimed their stools back:

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Cheered me up.

And here’s the video of the thing:

…

When I finally got on the road around noon, I felt very tired.

…

At some point, I cut into the bushes, just because they looked so nice:

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…and then I realized I was on a graveyard:

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…very romantic:

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…and next to the graves, something that I personally found pretty scary:

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Bees; two hundred boxes, ten thousand bees per box = a lot of bees.

I was just happy it wasn’t hornets. Hate those things.

…

Then I got to the city:

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Had lunch and a nice chat in a small Muslim restaurant:

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And then I got to my hotel.

And fell on my bed.

Soundtrack: Freak Nasty – “Da Dip”

—total: 2879,6km