Day 21: Environmental Protection Station, Qinghai to Qumalai, Qinghai

In the morning I retraced another 20 km to Budongquan and the graded road. The only gas station in Budongquan had been shut down, so I turned on to 300 kilometer dirt road minus 90 km of gas in the tank:




Behind were snow capped mountains:




Ahead were the plains:




There were antelope running away from me all morning:




And yaks around every corner:




The road was bumpy, rocky, and at times, covered in six inches of dust:




After over 100 kilometers of wilderness, I hit the first town, Qumahe:




The first time I saw these, I thought they were satellite dishes. On closer inspection though, it appears to be a hot water heater!




The road wasn't completely empty:




And a common theme for the day was taking dust baths as trucks rode past.

Here:




It:




Comes!




After that picture I curled into a ball and just let the dust wash over me in pure resignation.

There were no gas stations per se, but there were enterprising individuals who filled a hole in the market by opening their own:




I weighed risking running out of gas with risking putting these entrepreneurs' gas in my tank... and opted for the later. They only had 90 octane and when I asked where the gas was from, they said "Golmud." They might as well said "from the ground!"

And then I hit this abandoned, demolished town.

Serve the People:




It was really eerie:




Just after this town an approaching SUV pulled over and waved for me to stop. There were three Tibetans in it, and they asked in broken Mandarin if this was the road to Lhasa. I told them to drive 200 km and turn left. *That* was the road to Lhasa. They thanked me, I scratched my head, and we went our separate ways.

All day, my GPS had helpfully identified this road as "road," so I assumed this little road was nameless, but she eventually revealed her name to me:




Village hoops:




As the road went east it began to hit mountains. On one ascent, the road was, like everything else in China, tiled!




I bounced my way over the tiles and finally reached the last peak before Qumalai at 4558 meters:




And then began the final descent:




And at last, 300 kilometers later, pavement!!




I rode straight into the first gas station I saw and said "I'm looking for a hotel with a shower" - I hadn't seen a shower since Golmud, in what seemed like an eternity ago. The attendant pointed me down the street, and within an hour I was washing away a week's worth of dust, mud, snow, hail, and rain. It felt great!