Lhasa to Xian

We left Lhasa early in the morning and drove to Namtso Lake, which is the highest saltlake in the world. It was amazing! Huge lake with snowcapped mountains surrounding it. We bushcamped not far from it, and woke up early next morning to a beautiful sunrise. Didn't get going quite as early as we'd hoped because we had a flat tire... After that was fixed we set off. We were supposed to drive all the way to Golmud, 1000 km, in just two days. You might think that it doesn't sound all that much, but in a truck that only does 60 km/h at the most and with bumpy roads and loads of roadworks and delays it took a loooong time.

The first night we ended up driving all night because we got held up by roadblocks for a few hours and when it was bedtime we were at the top of a mountainpass with snow all around us and it was freezing cold, so we decided to just keep going. Went for a walk up a hill at one of the roadblocks and the view was fantastic! Huge flat plains surrounded by beautiful green hills. The next day we got held up by roadworks again for about 7 hours, and after that there were loads of diversions and bumpy roads so we almost had an all-nighter again. There had been a flood on one of the diversions aswell so we had to zigzag our way through the water and hope we didn't get bogged like about 20 other trucks had been. We finally arrived in Golmud at about 5 in the morning and went straight to bed.

Only had a few hours in Goldmud before we drove off to the next campsite which was only a couple of hours drive. It was a great spot, on a flat desert. Got bogged on the way so all the guys got out and pushed, I wish I hadn't left my camera on the truck! Got to the camp pretty early so we all had a beer while the cookgroup started preparing dinner. Had a great night around the bonfire, grilling marshmellows and telling stories.

The next day we drove to another saltlake where we set up camp. Another great spot with good stories around the fire. I was in the cookgroup and we managed to find stuffed meatballs so we cooked them in a mushroom sauce with veggies and nudles. mmmm...

The next day it was time to drive to Quinghai Lake which is Chinas biggest lake. On the way there we stopped in a village which was really special, all the people were wearing beautiful dresses and costumes and the womens hair was plaited in tiny braids and fixed at the bottom to a kind of belt with lots of decorations.

At the lake there was a birdsanctuary we visited. There were loads of geese at one point which we watched throug windows in a sort of house. At another spot there were loads of big black birds (can't remember their name...) on a rock in the water. The lake was amazing, it is so big! It looked like the ocean, I couldn't get my head around that it was actually a lake. And the surrounding hills reminded me so much of the English countryside, it was really strange.

The day after we drove on towards Tongrin. Stopped for lunch in a restaurant where noone spoke English and they didn't have an English menu so we just pointed at a couple of bowls with food at the neighbouring tables which looked good. It turned out that one of them was a mutton-soup (we were very unsure of what kind of meat it was at first...) and the other was bits of fish and liver in a spicy sauce.

In Tongrin we visited a temple, or rather lots of small temples spread out over a big area. I got a bit lost and ended up being invited to drink tea and eat breadsticks with a couple of monks. They were very nice, but they didn't understand a word of English, so we ended up looking at my pictures and drinking buttertea.

Next stop was Liujiaxia. I thought it was going to be a small town but when we got there it was huge with really tacky neonlights everywhere!! Got there late at night and found a great nightmarket with loads of nice food before we went to bed. The next day we went on a boatcruise on the Gyantse River the whole day. It was very nice, we drove out to the Bingling Si grottoes where there are really old Buddhafigures cut out directly in the stone wall, and a huge Buddha aswell. It was about 30 meters high or something, quite impressive!

Langzou was our next stop, got there quite late aswell, and found a nightmarket again. Renate decided to be a bit experimental so she bought chickens feet, pigs toungue and pigs ears. I had to try when the opportunity was there! The feet were just really spicy, the toungue was alright, a bit more meaty at least, and the ears were just really chewy and not all that good. Went out for a few beers and ended up in a caraoke-bar all by ourselves. It was quite fun, and the most hardcore didn't get to bed untill 8 in the morning!

Had a couple of nice bushcamps, one on the top of a hill with great views of the terraced hills and one overlooking a reservoir where we enjoyed our last bushcamp before Xian. Here we've seen the terracotta warriors which were impressive.

Xian is the final city for this leg of the trip, and is where the group splits up. I go on to Beijing with 7 people from the original group and the rest go on to Hong Kong or go off on their own. I'm a bit sad that we're all splitting up cause it's been a great group and we've had such a good time. So tomorrow I set off with a new guide, new driver and new truck towards Beijing!