The first leg of our journey through China had come to an end. So far – so good amazing. As per, we were in “tourism till you drop” mode (up early, see and do and/or travel as much as possible, never taking it easy…) – just the way we like it. Yet no one was too concerned about the 3000+ kilometers of traveling by coach that lie ahead; after all – together with those thousands of kilometers would come shed-loads of walking-sightseeing-marveling-extraordinaire. And anyway – dwelling on the great distances ahead would only have been a distraction; much better to dive headfirst into a new adventure without overthinking it or wasting brainpower on unnecessary emotions. Just “get it done”, as they say. And that’s just what we did…
The long route ahead of us was somewhat unclear: most of the online information was only in Chinese, our driver didn’t speak any other languages, and my Chinese wife – visiting the region for the first time – also couldn’t understand much. And to top things off – it turned out that even many Chinese sources were way slightly off.
But before heading west, let me tell you a bit about the city of Xining – the start and end point of our big loop through deserts, mountain landscapes, and salt lakes.
Xining is the administrative center of Qinghai – not the most industrially developed or densely populated province: essentially a “provincial” province ). However, in China, you should always multiply everything by ten: the capital of China’s third-sparsest province still has a population of 2.5 million! Here are some views out of my hotel window:
Read on…
