Thursday June 18 - Ping Liang to Sho Po Tou (350 km)

Up around 7 am, English breakfast: baked beans, mushrooms, chipalatta sauseages, eggs, and bread with marmite! On our way around 8:30 am. The countryside on the drive was the typical grassy mountains with terraced slopes and fertile valleys. The communities are larger now and more established. The roads are pretty good, many of them toll roads. We stopped for noodles/fried rice in a typical little restaurant in a small town. The food was quite mediocre but since it only cost $1 each, I guess we couldn't expect much. We ran out of pretty mountain scenery and into flat fertile valleys which eventually turned into desert. We arrived into Zhongwei and Sho Po Tou Hotel around 3:30 to 4 pm. The hotel is in a sand park, Sho Po Tou, where there are all sorts of activities including camel rides, horseback rides, sand board, rafting on the Yellow River, ziplining across the river and bungee jumping. All a little cheesy, but its a typical Chinese entertainment park and fun to be in. Temperature is very warm and dry. I can't say we did a lot after we arrived. Cleaned up a bit and then went out with the intention of going for a walk, but never got passed the patio bar. There is a long walkway along the Yellow River, and the hotel restaurant has a patio there. We walked around a bit and when we came upon the patio and some of our group were there, we just sat down and didn't go any further. Then it was dinner time and bed early.