Great Breakfast at Sofitel Xining
Breakfast was absolutely great at Sofitel Xining (西宁新华联索菲特大酒店), it had a huge spread of both western and local favours. This breakast was the best we had taken so far on this trip. We were not complaining about all the other simple breakfasts we had before because if every day we had rich breakfast it could get very “unbearable”. A mixture of simple and rich breakfast were great.
Enroute to Qinghai
We met our Xining guide. Sally Sofitel reception, she was a very bubbly lady as she introduced herself to the five of us. Soon we all got into our van and off we go. The driving distance from Xining to QingHai Lake was about 140km and would need about 2.5 hour. It was a long journey.
The roads were good and the drive was very smooth. The weather was fine, the sun was out and the sky was blue and the hill was green. About two third into our journey we stopped in a town for a 30 minutes “leg” break. Our guide was telling us about a famous princess, “Princess Wen Cheng” journey to Tibet for a marriage alliance to the king of the Tibet Empire.
After three-hour drive from our hotel we were finally near the lake and it began to appear in our view. The lake was gigantic and blue. Qinghai Lake was a saline water lake and the largest lake in China. It had a surface area of 4,317 square meter, an average depth of 21 m and a maximum depth of 25m.
By the time we reached Qinghai Lake Scenic Area car park it was already 11am. There were already many tourist buses parked. This place was already packed with tourists!
Our guide ran ahead to purchase our entrance tickets. As usual entrance tickets could be bought on site or from Trip.com. There was also 1-day tour that covered Qinghai Lake, Chaka Lake etc and included two ways transfer from Xining.
Our guide hurried us through the entrance and told us that a street-performance was about to start. The performance was about Princess WenCheng on her way to Tibet enrouting through Qinghai Lake.
This lake was huge, at certain sections it looked endless at other sections we saw distance mountain ranges. Qinghai Lake altitude was 3200m, at this altitude some people would suffer some altitude sickness for us we came well prepared, we had doctor prescribed high altitude medication and started taking it one day before we reached Qinghai/Xining.
Our visit also included a boat trip starting at Erlangjian Scenic Wharf to Erlangjian Peninsula. Erlangjian or 二 郎 剑 in Chinese literary meant “second son sword”. Second son was a name given to a Chinese warrior god. This god was shown in many depictions with a third eye on his forhead. Being a warrior he often held a long sword. So Erlangjian Peninsula was a long thin peninsula like a “sword”.
We boarded a large board and on the boat staff explained the flora and fauna of the lake. There were some islands on the lake with wildlifes but they were off limit to visitors. The lake was too huge to walk a round so the boat trip was a good way to look at the lake from the “water perspective”.
Qinghai Lake was just a huge lake. The view of the blue greenish lake, light brown beach, white cloud and light blue sky looked nice and pleasant. There was no “overwhelming” feeling of beauty.
We saw many beautiful pictures of Qinghai Lake showing vast field fully covered by yellow flowers extending to the edge of Qinghai Lake and these layers of yellow, green, blue, green and white landscape were stunning. We supposed we were not be in the right location of Qinghai Lake.
Too bad we only had half a day to explore Qinghai Lake and did not have the time t0 roam the place for a couple of days like locals. Cycling around, camping or staying at a hotel by the lake, exploring sights like “Bird Island Scenic Area, Fairy Bay Scenic Aria and Sand Island Scenic Area.
This was a disadvantage of a guided tour for a group. It would be rather expensive to stay too long like a few days of “doing not much but smelling roses” with a guide and driver in toll. Being in a group also meant one man’s enjoyment could be another man’s “waste of time.”
Enroute to Chaka Salt Lake
After Qinghai Lake we proceeded to Chaka Salt Lake ( 茶卡盐湖). It would be a 3 hour drive over 165 km. The guide’s plan was for us to stay a night in a hotel near Chaka Salt Lake and visit Chaka Salt Lake the next morning at sunrise.
For about 1.5 hour our van drove on a road on the southern side of Qinghai Lake, there was not much to see as the road was not exactly next to the lake. Occassionally we could see the lake from afar. About an hour after the road turned inland from Qinghai Lake our guide gave us a “break” at a mountain pass, Xiangpi Mountain Pass. The altitude at the pass was 3871m above sea level. The wind was extremely strong and the five color tibetan prayer flags corridor were fluttering furiously in the wind.
Chaka Salt Lake ( 茶卡盐湖)
After the mountain pass it was another 1.5 hour to Chaka Salt Lake. The weather was good and the sky was fine and blue so we suggested to our guide, Sally, that instead of going to our hotel to rest, we would like to visit Chaka Lake for sunset. We rather visited the salt lake when the weather was fine so as not to be disappointed if the weather turn bad the next day during our morning visit. We figured that if we were not satisfied with the sights of Chaka Lake at sunset we still had a second chance to come back the next morning.
We reached Chaka Lake at about 5.40pm. Last sale of ticket was at 6.40pm and the scenic area closed at 7.40pm. We still had at least two hours to visit Chaka Salt Lake. Our guide collected our passports and speeded to the ticketing office to get our entrance tickets. Entrance tickets could be bought on site or on Trip.com. The entrance Fee had different pricing for adult, child and senior. Basically for senior age 60 and above it was free entry. There were tickets for minitrain/electric car/waterboots which were standard pricing regardless of age.
We hopped onto a cute red mini train and “choo choo” down a railway track. The sightseeing train was originally built to transport salt from the lake, it provided an easy way to reach the deeper parts of the salt lake. Some visitors bought one way tickets, to reach the lake center and then to walk back. Our guide bought both way tickets for us and reminded us once we missed the last train at around 7.40pm we would have to walk all the way out to the entrance. The whole journey (one way) was 8 km.
There were several stations, starting with the Mirror station then the Salt Station, Xia Station, Feng (Wind) Station and the last was Xue (Snow) Station.
We came down at the Salt station to admire the humongous salt sculptures. This sculptures looked especially beautiful from far with there images perfectly reflected in the salt lake. We then proceed to the final station which was the Xue(snow) station where we got our water boots and icecream!
The boots were for us to wade into the lakes and take shots of our reflection!
We walked into the lake to as far as our boot height allowed. We made plentiful of poses but the reflections were no good. There were many small ripples on the water surface and they blurred our reflections! There were also many people in the shadow parts of the lake and we were all getting into each other ways. If only we had taller boots then we could wade far out to the quieter part of the lake.
After playing around in the salty water for about 40 minutes we called it a day. It already passed the last train so we planned to slowly walked out to the entrance.
We walked from one station to the next in the direction of the entrance. The sun set behind some mountain ranges so we only saw the golden rays in the far horizon. The sights were beautiful and we stopped frequently to take photos and this added more time into our journey
By about 9 pm we reached Chaka Salt Station, the Salt Sculptures were lighted up. They looked nice and different from the day view. This salt sculptures could be easily mistaken as snow sculpture as they were both white.
We were way past the closing time but no staff was hurrying us out the park, so we continued walking at our leisurely pace.
By about 9 pm we reached Chaka Salt Station, the Salt Sculptures were lighted up. They looked nice and different from the day view. This salt sculptures could be easily mistaken as snow sculptures, they were both white.
By the time we reached the entrance it was about 9.15 pm. We took about 2.5 hours to walk the 8 km out from Xue Station, the inner most station to the entrance.
Chaka Salt Lake was formed by the evaporation of ancient inland seas millions of year ago. Its thick salt crust, made up of sodium chloride and other minerals reaches depths of up to 10 metres in some area. Chaka Salt Lake dated back centuries with local Tibetan and Mongolian communities harvesting salts from its water for generations. In 1950s commercial salt extraction began and by 1980 the lake became a key resource for China’s salt industry.
Chaka Salt Lake became famous after photographs of its beautiful reflections were posted. Over the years it had went through a couple of closure for renovation to include/upgrade features like train stations, carparks, rest rooms and other facilities for tourists/visitors. In a way we were lucky as the Lake was opened just three weeks prior to our visit after some renovation!
Dinner
After 9 pm, most restaurants around the vicinity were already closed so our guide called around to checked which were those in Chaka Town that were opened for business. From the entrance of Chaka Salt Lake to the town was just 4.5km so in less than 10 minutes we were at a restaurant There we ordered our food and had a great meal. The meal for five persons came up to only ¥170.
Stay for the Night
Our hotel for the night was Jintian Century Hotel (茶卡锦天世纪大酒店) and it was also located in Chaka Town about 6.5 km from Chaka Salt Lake. It was not even a 5 minutes drive from our dinner place. It was a long day and we were only too happy to check in and rest.
During the booking of this tour “8 days Zhangye-Badain Jaran-Xining” we had specifically asked to stay in good hotels, preferably 5 stars when available. So far we were quite satisfied with our accommodation. The room at Jintian Century Hotel had pipe in oxygen which was very “reassuring” for those that were worried about high altitude sickness.
Other Accomodation in Chaka Town
