4 nights to get over the plateau to Golmud

<!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } -->

We drove along the Friendship Highway again away from Lake Namtso and alongside the railway line. Drove for the rest of the day through rolling green valleys and passed an endless procession of army trucks. We passed another 4800m pass and stopped to camp in a valley on the other side near a river. There are huge rodents around that look kind of like moles or guinea pigs but really big. Jasper has called them hamster-dogs. It was quite cold again tonight.

There was a storm during the night and in the morning we were happy to get up early enough to take the tent down before another one hit. It rained all through breakfast but we got everything away and back on the road. We drove over 2 passes today, 4800m and 5100m I think. The roads were terrible - we made slow progress. Eventually we were going so slowly that the army trucks caught us. We ended up camping between the road and the train line and there were big storm clouds rolling in. The storm hit while dinner was cooking and most people's tents survived the gale and the rain but Ruth's tent was flattened. We're at about 4600m again, and people are a bit grumpy. Very cold wind blowing.

It was dry the next morning but cold and cloudy all day. Early on we passed a patch of snow by the road. The road today was terrible and it was very slow going. Big stretches of road with huge holes or completely unsurfaced and we had to drive on a track beside the road. We stopped in another horrible little town for some noodles (we have a good MSG addiction now) and continued on. We stopped to camp by the railway line again. By this time we were really getting sick of flat plains and the cold.

Overnight it was freezing - literally. It was windy and tried to sleet a bit, and in the morning it was clear sky but the creek near the tent was frozen over and the tents were covered with frost. We shivered through breakfast and got on the bad roads again. Before long we were descending rather quickly, and by lunchtime we had left the plateau and were surprised to find ourselves in the Gobi Desert. We stopped for lunch in the city of Golmud which the guidebook describes as one of the most depressing places in China (although we didnt think it was that bad), and had a delicious lunch of different meat and vege dishes at a small restaurant. The rest of the afternoon we drove through the desert, with the mountains of the edge of the Tibetan plateau to our right. We stopped off to the side of the road in the dunes to camp. It's a lot warmer here and we are below 3000m so everyone is feeling a lot better and more energetic.