As we all know, the average altitude of the Qinghai-Tibet line is more than 4 kilometers, and there are very few cities and counties along the route, so it is particularly important to choose accommodation. In the previous article, I have shared my travel experience from Lhasa to Mount Tanggula, and the accommodation for the first night was at Nagqu at 4450 meters. And where did I stay the next night?
After crossing the Tanggula Pass at an altitude of 5,231 meters, it was already 9 o'clock in the evening. I was a little tired after driving on the "Tianlu" for a day. Fortunately, it was dark in Tibet very late, and I could continue to move forward. Stop at the "Life Zone". The nearest lodging point is Yanshiping Town, 100 kilometers away from Tanggula Pass, at an altitude of nearly 4,700 meters! This is bound to be a challenge for physical fitness!
It was already 11 o'clock at night when we arrived in Yanshiping Town. Although it was summer, the temperature was still unimaginably low. The body temperature was about 0-2°C. The wind was very strong, and fog came out of my mouth when I was talking. To be honest, when I got here, I was not sure if I had already arrived in Yanshiping Town, because the whole town had no lights, and it looked very dark and old. And the whole town was enveloped by a rumbling sound!
Sleepy, tired and cold, I just wanted to find a place to rest quickly, but I couldn’t find the accommodation here on the Internet, and there was no way to book in advance, so I drove around the town and looked around. There were only hotels, but no hotels. Due to the limited conditions on the plateau and the low oxygen content, I have never lived in such a high place before, so I found a hotel in the town that seemed to have the best conditions, and asked the price for 180 yuan a night (not peak season), the boss said that it was the only one in the town that had electricity, and I said: Other people’s homes also have lights on! He said: Didn't you hear the sound of generators all over the town?
After booking, I realized that there is no private guard, no TV, no toiletries, and no oxygen supply. To put it simply, there is only a bed! The toilet looks like a repair workshop. It is far away from the room. The water from the faucet is very small and can only be counted as water droplets. It is as cold as ice. It is understandable that the conditions are limited, but the room that costs nearly 200 yuan a night does not even provide a toothbrush. I can't justify it.
After waking up the next day, I had lunch here. I ordered two dishes, one scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and one fried pork with garlic. The total cost was 90 yuan. Prices are indeed relatively higher. After all, the altitude is high, the place is remote, the transportation is inconvenient, and it is one of the few footholds on the Qinghai-Tibet Line.
The owner of this store is from Qinghai and has been doing business here for a long time. The store is not big, but the internal environment is still very tidy and looks very warm. The meat in the store is stored in the freezer at the door, and when customers order it, they are taken out of it and cut in the back kitchen. Having said that, this is the first time I have eaten such a tomato scrambled egg. It is very large, and the egg is made into a pancake, which is very hard and has many bubbles in it. It tastes very special and I am not used to it. . Stir-fried pork with garlic is very good, but the spicy taste is too strong, and the portion is very large, I can't eat it at all!
The small town of Yanshiping is still without electricity. Every household has to generate their own electricity, and this store is the same. The owner of the store said: "Power generation depends on solar energy during the day and generators at night. It is still very hard to use electricity in daily life." If you don't experience it yourself, it is really hard to imagine that there are so many vehicles and tourists passing by every day, and there is no electricity today.
I also found a very interesting thing here, that is, the geographical and administrative jurisdiction of Yanshiping belongs to Qinghai Province, but the house number says Yanshiping Town, Anduo County. To put it simply: from the map, it belongs to Qinghai Province , but in fact it is controlled by Tibet. What's going on here? After asking, I found out that this is the immigration management section established by Anduo County, Nagqu Prefecture, Tibet in the Yanshiping area of Tanggula Mountain Town, Golmud City, Qinghai Province (it was moved successively after the heavy snow disaster in the winter of 1962).
Leaving Yanshiping Town and continuing forward, there will be a gas station as soon as you leave the town. The gas price here is lower than that of the Sichuan-Tibet line. The gas I refuel is 7.6 yuan per liter. Fill up the fuel, and I will be more energetic as a traveler. Let's look forward to the next stop with full energy - Hoh Xil No Man's Land!
