As early as the early days of human civilization, when the first astronomical records appeared in Mesopotamia, the priests of Babylon discovered the laws of the movement of the stars, the ancient Egyptians formulated the calendar, and the ancient Greeks used divination and astrology to predict the future. Never stop exploring the vast universe. I believe that human beings' curiosity about the world begins with looking up at the stars.
Since Columbus discovered the New World in the 15th century, whether it is the highest Mount Everest or the deepest Mariana Trench, human beings have traveled all over the earth. When the famous British mountaineer George Mallory answered the reporter's question "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest", he once said a classic saying - "Because the mountain is there!" If you want to ask me why I travel now , my answer is also "Because the mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, sun, moon and stars are there!"
The desolate Gobi desert, the majestic plateau and snow-capped mountains, and the criss-crossing rivers and rivers are flying on this uninhabited road. This is Qinghai! That's right, it's not the sacred Tibet, nor the romantic and blurred Yunnan, nor the exotic Xinjiang. This time, I'm heading towards Qinghai. It seemed a bit low-key, and I ignored this territory that surprised me so much, and I later discovered that this unconsciousness was a great loss. Qinghai is the source of many great things. As the birthplace of the ancient Chinese mythology system, the magnificent dreams of the ancestors are placed on the Kunlun Mountains. The Yangtze River and the Yellow River that nourish the children of China also originate here, giving birth to a multi-ethnic and multi-civilized society. form. I think the more mysterious the place is, the more I can drive to explore this area. Xingtu VX is my "compass".
From the uplift of geological structures to the ancient cultural relics 30,000 years ago; from the running and jumping rare creatures to the development and spread of religious beliefs; from the first atomic bomb explosion to the laying of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway; From the scenery to the lonely no-man's forbidden zone thousands of miles away, Qinghai has been calling me for a long time in the past. I was deeply attracted by the beautiful scenery, rare landforms, and unique experience. The primitive instinct flowing in my blood was shining slightly. I decided to drive Starway VX and follow the light to pursue it. start.
About the itinerary
D1 (October 8): Nanjing-Golmud collection
D2 (October 9): Golmud - Emerald Lake - Xiaochaidan, Suda Chaidan
D3 (October 10): Dachaidan - Dongtai Jinel Lake - Water Yardang - Xitai Jinel Lake, Sulenghu Town
D4 (October 11): Lenghu Town - Eboliang Yadan Landform, Su Lenghu Town
D5 (October 12): Mars Camp, Sulenghu Town
D6 (October 13): Lenghu Town - Golmud, Golmud
D7 (October 14): Golmud disbanded - go home
About the destination
Qinghai, the province with the fourth largest land area in my country, is named after Qinghai Lake, the largest inland saltwater lake in China. The western region is a plateau and basin with high altitude; the eastern region is mountainous and is the transition zone from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the Loess Plateau. More than four-fifths of the area in Qinghai Province are plateaus and mountains, with the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the inland arid basin and the Loess Plateau. It is truly complex and diverse.
This place with an average altitude of more than 3,000 meters was originally not suitable for human survival. The supposedly barren land has seen the dawn because of the abundance of water. Thanks to the five major water systems of the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, the Lancang River, the Heihe River, and the Datong River, it has completely changed. Changing the appearance of Qinghai, it has formed a unique plateau scenery, and it also contains rich resources.
about traffic
Qinghai does not have a well-developed transportation network like the tourist cities in the mainland, and the distances between various attractions are far away. Therefore, it is more suitable for self-driving travel, where you can enjoy the scenery along the way, or have the opportunity to encounter rare wild animals.
about the climate
Qinghai is deeply inland and far away from the ocean. It has a plateau continental climate, characterized by long hours of sunshine, strong radiation, large diurnal temperature variations, low precipitation, and large regional differences. In terms of dressing, you need to prepare thin and thick clothes. It is very common to have short-sleeved clothes during the day and down jackets at night, especially for people like me who can shoot the starry sky at night. Warm gloves and hats are also necessary supplies. In addition, besides wearing all kinds of beautiful skirts, the young lady who loves beauty must also do enough sun protection.
About altitude sickness
The most important thing to pay attention to in high-altitude Qinghai is altitude sickness. This varies from person to person. Some people have severe reactions and some have no feelings. Do strenuous exercise, keep your mood calm, don’t get carried away when you see the beautiful scenery, don’t overeat, drink plenty of hot water to speed up your metabolism, and seek medical attention in case of severe hypoxia, you can eat some rhodiola and plateau’s health care before departure Products to help yourself adapt as quickly as possible.
About photographic equipment
5D4+70200+1635+35L
Drones - God's perspective is king
Tripod - a good partner for starry sky photography
about the vehicle
This time, the vehicle I chose is Starway’s 7-seater flagship VX, with a 5-meter-class body and 3 rows of large space. It has leather seats and aviation headrests. It is not only comfortable to sit, but also can hold everyone’s luggage. Another reason for choosing it is that the engine and gearbox are smooth and fuel-efficient, the chassis is highly adaptable, and it is easy to drive the winding road at a high altitude of 3,000 meters, plus the L2.5 driving assistance system and high-tech functions such as face recognition and fatigue monitoring , Dual 12.3-inch high-definition large screens combined with AR navigation make this journey full of surrealism, truly giving everyone the concierge-level driving enjoyment.
Speaking of Qinghai, in fact, everyone is no stranger to it. In recent years, Chaka Salt Lake, which is known as China's "land of the sky", has attracted many tourists. However, this year, Aiken Spring, which is known as the "Eye of the Devil", Dongtai Jiner Lake, which is known as the "Maldives Division", and National Highway 315, etc. have opened up the hot search mode, which has completely pushed Qinghai to the forefront.
When I was shocked by those breathtakingly beautiful photos, it was unbelievable that there are so many extreme scenery hidden in Qinghai. After many days of thinking and hesitation, I simply chose to drive west after the National Day holiday to see what this new "Internet celebrity" really looks like.
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Arriving in Golmud by plane, after a short rest, we drove the Xingtu VX away from the city, and began to go deep into the desert, and walked along the road alone in the vast Gobi Desert, only the surrounding loess and mountains accompanied me.
Presumably the Creator is eccentric. He generously gave this land the water source that human beings depend on for survival. There are many rivers in the whole Qinghai Province, and lakes of all sizes are dotted all over. Many mountain peaks are covered with snow and glaciers. The Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and the Lancang River, which played an important role in the development of Chinese civilization and civilization on the Indochina Peninsula, constitute the outflow area of river runoff in Qinghai. The six major inland water systems including Qinghai Lake Basin, Qinghai Lake Basin and Qilian Mountains form the internal flow area.
It is such a well-developed water system that creates the spectacle of a vast salt marsh on the dry Gobi. The topography of the basin makes the development of rivers relatively limited, and in the Qaidam Basin there are large areas without rivers and no runoff. If you just stay in the cognition of Qinghai Lake and Chaka Salt Lake, you don’t really understand Qinghai. There are too many extreme scenery waiting to be discovered here.
After driving for more than 3 hours, I finally arrived at the first stop: Xiaochaidan Lake, Dachaidan and Xiaochaidan are not named because of the size of the lake. Many people don't know that Dachaidan Lake is not as big as Xiaochaidan Lake. Xiaochaidan Lake is one of the few plateau lakes in Qinghai that is close to the national highway. The color of the lake will vary according to the time of day, weather, and season (of course, this is mainly due to the light). There is a mountain in the distance across the lake, called Kurrek Mountain. Because of the colorful colors of the mountain, the locals call it Wucai Mountain. There is also the Paleolithic site of Xiaochaidan Lake nearby, where there are traces of the earliest humans appearing on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Many tourists go straight to Dachaidan and miss Xiaochaidan, which also keeps Xiaochaidan quiet and pure. Although Xiaochaidan is not as famous as Dachaidan, Xiaochaidan is still included in the list of "China National Geographic" Qinghai's 100 "Most Beautiful Scenery Shooting Spots", which proves that it is still worth seeing. After all, there is a saying in the photography circle: "Watch the sunrise at Heima River in Qinghai Lake, watch the sunset at Dachaidan Lake and Xiaochaidan Lake".
Leave Xiaochaidan Lake and come to Dachaidan Emerald Lake. Emerald Lake is one of the most representative scenic spots in the Dachaidan area. It is a magnesium sulfate subtype salt lake, but its unique salt lake features are composed of halides (water) and minerals (crystallizations) after mining resource development, so It is a man-made landscape. Once an undeveloped virgin land with primitive features, it has now become an online celebrity attraction where crowds gather.
Here, I discovered that it is not only the sea water that presents a different blue color, and it is not an exaggeration to compare it to the works of nature artists. Sometimes, the pictures can't completely reflect its beauty, but what you really come to this place and record with your eyes, that is its true color, which is the reason why I have been setting out.
It is like an unpredictable and mysterious color, sometimes blue, sometimes yellow-green, every second, every angle of view, I can record its different colors. There are so many color combinations in the world, it takes up all your imagination.
Only by flying a drone and looking down from a high altitude can you fully appreciate the fairyland scenery of Emerald Lake. Due to the different content of mineral elements, the lake water presents all kinds of blue and green that you can imagine, including light blue, dark blue, emerald green, dark green, etc. The crystal clear "emerald" is inlaid on the vast land. When the weather is calm, the mirror-like lake reflects the blue sky and white clouds and the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Earthy yellow is the main color of Qaidam, but I don’t know who overturned the palette, sprinkled a touch of green here, and shuttled through it, as if in another world. I really want to change Du Fu’s poem to: "This scene It should only exist in the sky, how many times can we see it in the world."
The lake in the afterglow of the setting sun turned dark blue, and several buildings on the shore seemed a bit advanced in design, which reminded me of the red-roofed castle where a German king lived, although it was a miniature version, But just imagine living in such a place, facing the lake every day, is a happy thing.
"Stargazing" has been planned for a long time during my trip. Check the time of the Milky Way lift-off in advance, and check the guide to see the weather and choose a good location. For the convenience of shooting, I lived in Dachaidan tonight. When night fell and the tourists retreated, I came to Emerald Lake to shoot the starry sky. In this season of the plateau, the night is already so cold that you need to wear a down jacket. After arriving, find the camera position as quickly as possible, set up the tripod, adjust the camera parameters, and wait for the scene of the Milky Way appearing. Because there is no light pollution, the Milky Way can be seen hanging in the sky with the naked eye. At this moment, you will suddenly understand why you should: "Revere the starry sky above your head, and always look up", because the picture hits people's hearts directly, and there is no reason.
Dongtai Jinel Lake
The U-shaped road in Qinghai has the illusion of coming to the US Route 66. As someone who has walked two roads at the same time, the appearance here is not inferior to Route 66 at all. It is also so desolate and precarious, with straight roads from top to bottom, the end of the world beyond sight, the barren red rock highlands, and the dust-soaked weeds in the desert, presenting all the scenes from the Gobi.
Pull up the camera position and look up at this road, it will show another flavor. The surrounding mountains are covered with dust, like a hell world where there is no grass.
It may be hard to believe that a place comparable to the Maldives is not even a real sea. But it is such a place where the sea is better than the sea, with white salt as the sand and blue lake as the sea, and I forcibly lost a vote of the coast by PK. This is my next destination - Dongtai Jinel Lake.
Jinel Lake in Dongtai is also a salt lake, more precisely, it is a super-large lithium deposit dominated by brine, which is highly corrosive and hidden deep in the hinterland of Qaidam. "Qaidam" means "salt marsh" in Mongolian, and it is the largest salt deposit in the world. It is said that the original Jiner Lake in Dongtai was just a vast white saline-alkali land. Later, due to the flood discharge of the Usut Yadan Geological Park 26 kilometers away, the water level of Jiner Lake in Dongtai rose, and new mineral components appeared in the lake. It became the color that everyone sees today.
The clear and transparent lake water spreads out layer by layer, matched with snow-white salt particles, without any need for filter modification, it is dreamlike and dreamlike, and no amount of beautiful words can describe it too much, let alone a girl, even my big Men are very excited. Dongtai Jinel Lake has a twin brother named Xitai Jinel Lake. They used to belong to the same lake, but later they separated into two independent lakes due to the shrinkage of the lake. National Highway 315 passes through the lake and divides Xitaijinel Lake into two parts. One side is green and the other side is blue. Xitaijinel Lake is also known as Shuangse Lake.
Along the 315 National Highway, you will arrive at the Wusu Teyadan Geological Park. After geological movements and changes in time and space, the Qaidam Basin has bred and formed the largest and most spectacular Yadan community in the world. Most of the known Yardang landforms exist in extremely arid regions, and the Yardangs here are spread all over the lakes, creating extremely rare water Yardangs in the world. In the endless Gobi, a "vast ocean" appears out of thin air, and the Yadan on the water, like "thousands of ships sailing to sea", is the secret place of this barren world.
In every desert, there must be camels. Yes, this is also a good place to ride camels. For those who have desert thoughts, you may as well give it a try, but the premise is of course that you can bear the familiar feeling. "Camel Flavor"~
"Yadan" means "a small hill with steep walls" in Uyghur language, and it is a wind-eroded landform. According to "Shandong Land and Resources", the ground formed by the soil-like sediments of river and lake facies, after weathering, intermittent water erosion and wind erosion, forms wind-eroded mounds and wind-eroded depressions (ditches) parallel to the prevailing wind direction and arranged alternately. trough) landform combination. Well, to put it more generally, hundreds of millions of years of wind and rain have made it what it is now.
In addition to the rare Yadan on the water, the Yadan landform group in the Qaidam Basin also has the fantastic and mysterious Russian Boliang Yadan landform. Erboliang is the highest Yadan landform in China. Looking down from the top of the mountain, there are a large number of turtle-shaped Yadans on the Gobi, which look like Aobao. This is how "Obaoliang" got its name. It was called "Russian Boliang".
Xitai Jinel Lake is also known as a double-color lake. It is more pure than Dongtai. It is driving on a straight road with lakes of two different colors on both sides. It is very calm, very quiet, there are no waves, and I like the weather to be sprinkled on this land, one person, one car, one road. Isn't this the poetry and distance we yearn for?
Mars Camp
Driving on the Mars No. 1 highway, walking through the world's largest Yardang group, it is like driving on the surface of Mars, and unknowingly arrived at the most unlike place on the earth - the Mars camp, this is China's first Experience the popular science camps of "Life on Mars" and "Mars Exploration", and use "Cold Lake Laboratory" as a platform to provide laboratory solutions and STEM curriculum systems for K12.
Driving on this road, I can hardly see any creatures other than myself. It is not unreasonable to call it the Martian camp on Earth.
The camp construction style simulates the living environment after humans migrate to Mars in the future. There are "headquarters building" and "Mars capsule", etc., which are integrated with the surrounding mountains, just like the scenes that once appeared in movies. Everyone who comes to the camp They can all personally experience the state of living on Mars, and can't help but want to enter the role of survival challenge as soon as possible and complete the research project of "Mars migration".
At the Martian camp, spacesuits can be rented for experience, just like Matt Damon in "The Martian". The moment I put on the spacesuit, I really felt that I was in the lonely and lonely outer space, in the boundless desert, and human beings were as small as a speck of dust. "I saw the vast Gobi, yellow sand all over the sky, looking around, there is nothing but a piece of loess" is exactly what we can see after we land on Mars, and the exploration of Mars immigration is about to start from here.
Russian beam
After leaving the Mars camp, came to Erbo Liang. If the quiet lake can make people feel the gentleness of the Northwest, then the desolate Erboliang will make people feel the wildness of the Northwest. I have reserved a whole day for this place. The endless no-man's land is like walking into a giant maze, surrounded by intricately sized and shaped Yadans. Can see the shape of the wind. Without too many words or gorgeous rhetoric to describe, you can see its majesty and magnificence at a glance. The uncanny craftsmanship of nature is so shocking, it is indeed "a world fabricated by a madman".
Erbo Liang probably collaborated with the wind on a project to cut this place into the shape he wanted with the help of the wind. The hills here are high and low, some are like animals, some are like plants, It is worthy of being a work of art of nature, time has become their gear, and every work comes from here.
There is a latest news that I want to announce to everyone: in accordance with the requirements of the Lenghu Industrial Park Management Committee's "Notice on Strengthening the Safety Maintenance and Protection Capabilities of Russian Boliang Yadan Tourist Scenic Spots and Accelerating Infrastructure Construction", in order to effectively improve the safety maintenance and Protective capabilities, speed up the improvement of infrastructure construction in scenic spots, and further improve the quality and satisfaction of tourists. The Lenghu Erboliang Yadan Tourist Area will be closed from October 15, 2020 to April 30, 2021. During the closed period, tourists will not be received. The scenic spot will be officially opened on May 1, 2021. I was very glad to see this news, after all, I was here before it was temporarily closed.
Since the accommodation in the Mars camp is not easy to book, we chose to drive to Lenghu Town for accommodation. There is a ruins of Lenghu Oil Town here. We came here at night to shoot the starry sky. I feel like I am on another planet looking at the Milky Way. It is a scene that only appears in Hollywood blockbusters, but now it is truly displayed in front of my eyes, which is amazing and incredible.
Conclusion:
Whether you are a fearless explorer, a poet of literature and art, or an ordinary traveler, Qinghai can bring you everything you want, such as the collision of civilization and primitiveness, the symphony of nature and growth, the contest between development and destiny, the truth The overlap with illusion, the game of freedom and loneliness. This is Qinghai, you think you know enough, but you can't figure it out. Continue to embark on the road ahead to pursue it, and look forward to our meeting again under the distant starry sky.
