We left the lake after a windy and cold fifteen minutes and set off for the main event. Chaka Salt Lake!
The lake is about 300 km from Xining (number 4 on the map) and has only recently been opened to foreigners. Lots of Qinghai is blocked to foreign travelers for who knows what reason so there it is exciting that I could finally make it here.
When we arrived, the weather was still a bit wet so my driver recommended I wait half hour and get some food, if it had not started to clear up, we would give up and I would go home very disappointed.
Luckily for me, the rain stopped and the clouds began to clear so I went and bought tickets for the park
before I changed my mind. Once again buying tickets was amazingly complicated and I am still not convinced I actually bought and paid for the right thing but eventually I got on the bus to the park entrance. From the entrance there were a few different routes available. I chose the train and made my way to the tracks. As it had been raining earlier, I was quite lucky that I managed to beat the majority of the lines. Only had to queue for a few minutes before getting the train all the way to the end of the track, (the furthest point) so that I could walk back.
I have a soft spot for trains so all of the tracks and old train cars made for a fun and very picturesque photo spot. The plains still supply huge amounts of salt and is still being used today. Google let me down when trying to find out exactly how much.
The train track is about 1.5 kilometers long and heads right out into the middle of the plains. From the end point you can walk back along the track or do as many other people were doing and rend wells
to walk back through the water. I decided to stay on the path as there was basically no-one on it and i didn't fancy wading back even though it wasn't deep.
The salt made the lake look like it was covered in snow and the shallow water made the water into a giant natural mirror. Often Chaka Lake is referred to as a sky mirror and it is easy to see why.
As far as I am aware, the only other place to see something like this is in Bolivia and even then only a few months of the year. This place is granted much smaller and very Chinese tourist destination, but it is still incredibly beautiful.
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