{"id":1667,"date":"2017-05-21T04:48:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-21T04:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/?p=1667"},"modified":"2017-05-21T04:51:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-21T04:51:22","slug":"18th-may-xining-to-zhangye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/?p=1667","title":{"rendered":"18th May – Xining to Zhangye"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning we have a smooth departure out of the city of Xining with a 340 km drive to Zhangye mostly on \u201cG\u201d roads which are non highways. We are seeing more mosques now that we are moving west where there are more Muslim people living.<\/p>\n

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The scenery as we we wind our way through the Qilian Mountains is breathtaking. \u00a0Our first glimpse of the snow capped mountains is through the trees on the side of the road. \u00a0We see what looks like fields of Christmas trees and lot’s of people weeding & preparing fields. We’re not too sure what they are using the pine trees for.<\/p>\n

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We see our first yaks, but I’m sure they wont be the last ones.<\/p>\n

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Our morning tea stop is at 3,200 metres with clear crisp air, snow capped mountains & clear blue sky, it doesn’t get much better than this!<\/p>\n

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After morning tea the magnificent scenery continues.<\/p>\n

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We climb up to the top of the mountain pass at 3,800 metres and pass through a mountain tunnel to the other side where it’s a fabulous view, particularly of the road that we are about to drive on. \u00a0There’s not much of a breeze & the sun is out, so it’s not too cold.<\/p>\n

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We drop down slightly and come to a look out point where there are locals selling Tibetan handicrafts and most of us buy a bracelet or necklace!<\/p>\n

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We drop down more\u00a0& continue through the valley where there are many people camped on both sides of the road. \u00a0Apparently in May they come to this area to dig up a certain type of worm that is used for a Chinese medicine that is in demand all over the world.<\/p>\n

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We have lunch at a small town called Ebao where there is a fabulous Silk Road monument with Marco Polo and his camels. We attract quite a bit of attention in this small village!<\/p>\n

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We have lovely yak & freshly made noodle soup for lunch before continuing our drive through the mountains.<\/p>\n

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We drop down quite a bit further into a huge vegetable growing area which has fast flowing irrigation channels running through it & kilometres of poplars lining the road.\u00a0 Behind the trees are kilometres of hot houses, some looked abandoned and others had plants growing in them.<\/p>\n

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We arrive at our destination of Zhangye in the early afternoon and Michael, David & Henk do some maintenance on Ginger & Shiraz.\u00a0 In the early evening we walk to the lovely park where there is a temple and a pond, then we go onto a big square where there is a pagoda.<\/p>\n

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In most of the towns we have visited the men & women do square dancing to music in the early hours of the morning and late at night, before it gets dark. \u00a0The reason it’s called square dancing is because they dance in the square. \u00a0Tonight we see many people dancing, they are very graceful.<\/p>\n

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This morning we have a smooth departure out of the city of Xining with a 340 km drive to Zhangye mostly on \u201cG\u201d roads which […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mak.iqt.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/DSC04361.jpg?fit=3648%2C2736&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qvHY-qT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1744,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions\/1744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}