The last 100 milesmileto Yellow Sheep River

We flew from Hong Kong to Lanzhou (pronounced Lan-Joe), and a driver carried us "the last mile" (actually 100 miles and 3 hours) to Yellow Sheep River. 

We took a trucking route that only has three lanes--a dead-man's highway--and as night fell on the road to Yellow Sheep River things got a little dicey. Most cars there do not turn on their headlights because the dust/smog on the road creates intolerable glare, but the lack of light makes it nearly impossible to see oncoming traffic until the very last moment! It's like an exciting video game where invaders come at you over a relatively close event horizon, except the road to Yellow Sheep River is very real and very intense. 

 

Our 4-door sedan shared the road with other cars, motorcycles, rickshaws, motorized three-wheelers, and small-, medium-, and large-sized commercial trucks carrying everything

 from potatoes to motorcycles. 

Every time we passed a slower vehicle, we had to deal with an oncoming vehicle with lots of honking and light-flashing, and a last-moment dog-leg dash back into our own lane. It kept us awake :)