Yellow Rape Flowers by Qinghai Lake

Shan-ke (mountain music) was playing throughout our journey to the Xining train station. Despite the little sleep, I was excited and took the beautiful scenery in. It didn't matter how many times I saw the mountains, yak, farm houses and fields, I was happy beyond everything. Everything was so beautiful, simple and true, much unlike the world I live in.

The Qinghai Lake (Lake Koko Nor in Tibetan), which means blue lake, is the biggest salt water lake in China. There are three types of lake in China; salt water, fresh water and salt lake. It takes an entire day to go around the lake by car and 23 days by walking. The colour of the lake changes with the weather. Sometimes, it is in different shades of blue, green or even yellow. The lake is also a home for 60 types of birds and a popular produce of the lake is the huang yu (yellow fish) which has many small bones.

The grass orchards on the grassy hills are populated with short trees or shrubs. These trees have deep roots because rodents would damage the roots.


We passed several kilometres of yellow rapeseed fields by the blue lake.


Faster cars were overtaking while by the road side, we saw tourists making a stop for photos


We didn't stop as we were heading to a restaurant for lunch before coming back for photos. We had buns, meatballs and several other vegetable dishes for lunch. The food was good though the cooking was rather oily.


Meatballs


A potato dish stirfried with meat


Stirfried capsicum with meat


Stirfried eggplant with meat


Soupy dish with minced meat


Tents outside the restaurant where you can dine in


A little park






Back at the rapeseed fields


Beautiful blue Qinghai Lake behind the fields and the mountains are at a far distance


Some native people came towards us as we stepped out of the bus, asking if we would like to take pictures with the animals. They charge RMB 10 to 20 to take photos with them.


A girl with a young goat


Nomads lined their tents by the road


Tibetan nomad trying to persuade the tourists to take pictures with her mount


Others came with their vehicle