This afternoon we left the Sichuan Province to travel to Xining in the Qinghai Province on the high Tibetan Plateau (~2300m). Our entree to the long-awaited Lhasa! but the visit to Xining promises to be interesting albeit short. It is the cultural crossroads of the Muslim, Tibetan and Han people who were brought together by centuries of trade on the ancient Silk Roads.
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| Leaving Kunming on a fast train! |
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| Stunning scenery and thosse mountains! |
That is tomorrow but rewinding to yesterday. We arrived in Chengdu after a very comfortable nine-hour train journey on a high speed train from Kunming - we reach 297 kph or more (I wasn’t watching all the time!). Feeling rather bedraggled after a 6:00am start (and a tiring day the previous day), the local guide took us on a ‘gallop’ around some of the streets of Chengdu before depositing us at the entrance to Jinli Ancient Street. It is supposed to have been built around 2000 years ago and some parts do look fairly old. Ultimately, it is a tourist location where you can buy anything from dried meats and fungi to nougat, clothing to panda trinkets (this is the panda district), green tea to ‘coral’ jewellery - and food and drink of course! We sat for a spell with a cold drink listening to a delightful young man and his guitar. All this was followed by another ginormous dinner - unfortunately the spice was toned right down for us Westerns. And there was me (and others) looking forward to some authentic Sichuan food!
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| Very quaint |
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| I chose a delicious pork broth with fungi inc black cloud ear fungus, but could have had frogs! |
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| Breakfasts were very interesting - here we have fried sliced pork with fungus, and cabbage with chilli |
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| To our great surprise and delight this room-service robot got in the lift after us |
This morning the majority of the group went to visit the panda research/rescue centre while Lins and I and another couple simply chilled out. Once regrouped, we devoured another humongous meal before boarding the overnight train to Xining, Qinghai Province, on the Tibetan Plateau (~2300m).
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| Our overnight train to Xining |
As we travelled north and higher, the scenery that whizzed by us before darkness descended was really interesting - curiously shaped hills, rich crops of many different varieties. The train and accommodation is reminiscent of the Chinese and Russian trains we travelled on almost a decade ago. Perfectly adequate but a little noisy. We have just ‘turned in’ for the night so will pick up our story as we climb further towards Lhasa traversing the highest railway in the world - 4000 to over 5000m. Yes, we are definitely taking our altitude sickness pills!
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| Obviously the soil is very fertile |
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| In the disctance we saw a number of power startion puffing steam reminiscent of Loy Yang |
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| This river looked wonderful in the gathering dusk. It could be a tributroy to the Yangtze |
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