Sunday, June 7, 2009

Sunday June 7, 2009 - Golmud to Tongren - The Tibetan Plateau II

Sleep came easy and deep until 7:30 am on Sunday morning when once again it was up and on our way continuing through the desert. At one point, we came across a herd of camels (two humps) beside the road, mangy looking, and unexpected. Not sure if they are wild or not, suspect not! The drive was uneventful. The scenery changed from pure desert to a sort of grassy desert within mountains ranges where sheep, goats, cattle, and horse grazed. We stopped for a shopping spree in Dulan to buy food for dinner (Ray is on tonight’s cook team) and other sundry items for the Truck. A very friendly little town where tourists were obviously rarely seen. The curiosity of the people continues to amaze us. After that we had a short drive, for part on a bumpy, dirt road, but otherwise in a fairly straight, smooth tarmac road. We stopped for lunch in a cow patch and made sure we left some scraps! We have noticed the number of bridges that are washed away which always means a detour off the main road through the ditches on either side.

We came to Caka Yan Hu, a salt lake, turned off the road and drove across the sandy plain which was sprinkled with bunches of pretty blue lilac looking flowers and tufts of grass resembling sea-grass or sea-oats, and sheep, cattle, and horses. Immediately, a lone horseman appeared on a little brown scruffy mare with a foal following along. He just hung around us …watching…. curious, but when I came to put up the tent he came to help me which was fabulous since Ray was on cook-group. I did get a bit concerned and wondered if there was any expectation that since he had helped me put up on “sleeping quarter” I might also want to “share” them with him!! Another horseman appeared this time on a much prettier grey. They hung around just watching and chatting with our Chinese guide for a while then disappeared across the grass-land in to the sunset. We had a good night’s sleep, not too cold, and were awakened in the morning by the sound of “mooing” in our ears. Obviously one of the cows had come fairly close to the tent!

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