China - Golmud QingHai and en route to Lhasa

The elevation (altitide) started to increase as we left Golmud which is really a stop over town en route to Tibet. As warned by Vanessa our Chinese guide, there would be some night driving because of road construction. Yes, Tim and Cheryl drove all night while we slept any way we could at the back. Denis and Richard slept in the luggage compartment and there we about two or three lied in the central aisle of Calypso, etc. It was cold and a couple of us did not feel well because of a combination of bad food (we did not have the choice but to eat at a questionable restaurant in the small village of Wudaoliang) and altitude sickness. From here on, we were mainly above 4000m. Unfortunately, it was the night time we went through some very spectacular country: Kunlun Pass (4767m), Tang Gula Pass (5231m) and went over a couple of rivers which marked the first bridges of the great Yantze River (Chang Jiang) and the great Mekong. Here are a some early photos taken on the Tibetan Plateau.

No much has been said about the highest railway system in the world. For most of the way along the road, the railway was either to our right or to our left - weaving through the mountainous region. The Chinese constructed and commissioned the railway a couple of years ago. As an engineer, I thought it was a marvelous piece of engineering and hats off the those who had a hand constructing it in this very difficult and inhospital high country. A lot of commentators unfortunately could not see pass that and had to throw in the political overtone to this great engineering achievement. Pity. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of how they maintained the altitide of the track:


Tibetans are very religious people and their prayer flags can be seen any where in Tibet (in adjacent provinces). Most of the time they do look untidy:

We arrived at Nagqu (Tibet's third largest town) about 10:30am and picked up DaWa, our Tibetan guide (the law required us to have full time guide everywhere we go in Tibet). Then we headed to NamSo Lake - one of the three holy lakes of Tibet. But, first we must top up our onboard water. Crystal clear water from the mountain and fellow travellers made the job lighter:

During one of the toilet stops, this Yak (an amazing animal) came down effortlessly from a very steep cliff face and walked across the road in front of me. I was still wondering how it had managed to get down from up there!!

Here are some photos taken from NamSo Lake: There is a village at the top end of the lake but was set up especially for tourists. We camped some distance from it. The dark brown tent is made from Yak hair.


Next stop ..... Lhasa