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Drove through some more valleys this morning and got to Qinghai Lake before lunch. We stopped in a town near the lake and bought lunch, then drove down to a spot beside the lake for a picnic. The lake is saline but is still surrounded by grassy plains. It was sunny but a cool breeze made it feel like a day at the beach in winter.

We drove for the rest of the afternoon into the city of Xining, the capital of Qinghai province. Terry has been quite sick the last week or so with the flu, so Steve and Sisi took him to a doctor and they sent him to the Xining hospital for some tests. Of course they assumed swine flu right away and wanted the rest of us to go in for tests as well, but Steve told them where to go and we just waited around in the truck for an hour and a half or so until Steve and Sisi came back - terry is staying in overnight for the test results. In the meantime, we had found out there was a KFC in town, so a few people got a taxi there and bought KFC for dinner for everyone. We drove back to the edge of town and camped in an empty field. The family who lived there in a tiny hut on the edge of the field wouldn't take any payment for us to stay there, and they also brought us over a bottle of alcohol as well!