Lanzhou

Towards the Silk Road

Lanzhou is a relatively small industrial city by Chinese standards, only 3 million people, with rich deposits of oil, coal, nickel, chromium, lead, limestone, gypsum and marble helping to explain its rapid development from 'barren, backward and impoverished'. Set between mountains this natural corridor linking China to Central Asia also provided a trade route between the Western Tibetan Plateau and Mongolia to the north. Cement works, power stations, aluminium refineries, oil and gas refineries on the city outskirts belch grey haze against a blue sky, clearing after morning rain. As our bus climbs through the smog zone we are greeted by scar-faced mountains…