My previous flight GS7648 was pretty much on time, so I got nearly four hours of connection time to kill in Lanzhou(兰州) Airport.
Flight GS7648 parked in the old terminal of Lanzhou Airport, and I passed along a transit counter after I got off the plane. Since Tianjin Airlines has some strict rules banning luggage bags as carry-on items, so I checked that bag on the previous leg. But it's common truth to any intellectual being that checked bags don't get to belts in Beijing Capital Airport at speed, specially it's domestic flight into Terminal 2 at night (Yes it's China Eastern on a flight from Shanghai Hongqiao that taught me this), so I decided to bring that luggage bag onboard on the flight to Beijing. Since I need to collect that bag first, I didn't pay any attention to that transit counter.
Time to head back to Beijing.
Since I didn’t want to miss to many lectures for this trip to Xinjiang, I chose to fly back on Tuesday so that I won’t miss the lecture on Wednesday.
During planning, one major reason, apart from the scenery and appropriate distance (by train) from Urumqi, that I chose to spend two days at Zhangye(张掖) (rather than Dunhuang(敦煌)) before heading back was the cheap flight from Zhangye to Lanzhou(兰州) at 120CNY, which would be the cheapest air ticket I’ve ever purchased.
We arrived in Zhangye relatively early from the half-day trip to Ma-Ti Temple, so after lunch I had got plenty of time to make my way to the airport for the 1635 departure. By the tour guide to Ma-Ti Temple, Zhangye Airport had cancelled it’s passenger shuttle bus, which left a three-times daily "employee" shuttle bus that didn't fit my schedule. So under her advice I spent 22CNY for a shared ride on the Didi app to Airport.
By the way, compared with Datong(大同) Airport that I've been to earlier this year, with (I guess) similar passenger volume, Datong Airport was able to provide passenger shuttle bus based on arrival and departure times of its flights. (But if one consider Datong as a city, Zhangye was a county in every aspect but name, so no surprise.)
Zhangye Airport Avenue Traffic was sparse on this airport avenue, with golden leaves lining its side.
