However Stephan is flying out from Xining on Saturday morning and he asked if we could turn off the 217 highway onto the 214 and stay at the nearest town, which geographer John said was Chindu.
So right we turned at about 5 pm for a half our drive......except that the geographer had them heading to a town 15 mm off the highway! Paddy couldn't be bothered driving on the gravel so we headed on. Neither of the next two towns had anywhere to stay so we ended up in the dark crossing this nearly 5000 m pass enroute to Batu (sp?) arriving at 11 pm.
Now writing from some some little rat hole hotel with shared toilet and hand basin for about 40 Tibetan truck drivers, no shower facilities.
This is the 3rd day in "hotels" with either no shower or ones that look like they came from a designer bathroom magazine, but which of course don't work.
Yesterdays journey, for all it's tribulations, was through marvelous country. Think the McKenzie country for 700km and you get the idea.
While we started off with trees we eventually climbed above the treeline spending, most of the day driving at about 4300m.
The locals collect Yak dung and dry it outside their houses as fuel for winter. The housing is lot poorer.
What has been surprising is that despite the altitude and appalling roads there are little villages every few kilometers.
Many of the lakes and hydro dams we passed still have ice on them. We see hordes of school children heading home at 5.00pm. We were stopped at 3 Police checkpoints, once because we had a roof rack, and on one occasion because they said to carry gear on the back seat was illegal!
And this on a region where the smallest van carries 8 adults and all drive at 100km an hour plus.
I think we crossed 5 passes over 4500m yesterday, all a bit like Porters Pass in the South Island of NZ. Lots of the villages have coloured prayer flags on the hill sides, some covering up to several acres.
Next report from Xining.
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