Visiting a local home

Last Days in Lanzhou
I never realized what an impact on the world Tibet had with all its history of medicine. A whole museum is devoted to the manuscripts which are pictorial as well and the old instruments which I’m so glad to know have improved immensely.
. It also houses a T tanka which was a pictorial scroll measuring something like 160 metres long. It was amazing .It had taken 26 years to plan and about 10years to paint by 4 painters. It was in a glass window that wound around and around like a maze with tiny pictures all telling the history of Tibet.
We travelled back to Lanzhou only stopping for a toilet stop where we parked beside one of the many large trucks that use this wonderful express highway. The tyres leave a lot to the imagination when the middle double tyres were thread bare baring the wire and the other on had great big holes out of the rubber. They were both ready to blow at any time. I’m glad our drive pulled out in front. We visited another museum this afternoon but being a bit museumed out now I can only remember the link to this part of China finding the remains of many dinosaurs which were beautifully displayed.
The next day’s trip was to be a bit more exciting. The Binling Caves were our destination. Our drivers stopped in a village on the side of the road and just asked an elderly woman standing there if we could have a look at here home. Imagine doing this back home with a couple of tourists. The lady was so charming. She said it was an honour to have such rich people visit her poor home. Rich people because I was wearing my wedding ring and my mother of pearl bracelet. I pointed out she also had a wedding ring and a gold bracelet. The home was not what you expect from the mud brick wall exterior. It was lined with ceramic tiles on the front with double glazed windows. One room was the living room and had a fridge, centre pot belly stove for heating some furniture and a TV set. Her bed was in this room as well which now had an electric blanket on. She used to have her bed heated by a small shovel full of embers placed inside the brick base of her bed. The warm bricks would keep her warm for the night. Many housed had small doors the size of a cat flap on one wall which led into the bed box. We don’t know how lucky we are. The kitchen was an amaze of electric wires, no underground cabling here, that led to two small burners. No oven here that I could see. Her two daughters slept off from this room. Once again all rooms led off a courtyard which was being flooded to water the cabbages. Her family were farmers and they grew linseed for oil, rice, corn and beans.
A school was near by so were said hello there as well. The children were practising a small item for children’s day on June 1. I found 8 old computers in a locked room that looked as though they came out of the ark. A box of broom were in the corner so I guess they cleaned the school as well. Broad beans grew where we would have had grasss.