Day 43

Good roads again mean't we arrived at our visit for the day soon after noon.  We saw the second largest clay Buddha in China (having seen the third largest in the Magao valley caves).

This one is in a lying position rather than seated and was made in 1372.  It contained many artifacts, and like a lot of Chinas treasures, many were destroyed or disappeared during the cultural revolution.  Thanks to the ingenuity of the original builders, however, many important Buddhist documents survived as they had been hidden behind a false wall.

In the afternoon we had reached our planned destination by 3pm, so decided to continue and reduce tomorrows mileage.  Somewhere within this discussion the intention to camp was lost and we phoned ahead to book a hotel in Xining.

The afternoon's drive could only be described as spectacular, and we rated it above any day of the journey so far. We climbed up a winding valley on to the edge of the Tibetan plateau surrounded by grassy slopes, goats and Yaks.  The local people look somewhat different to the Chinese we have seen so far and more like Nepalese.  Their homes were no more than tents, but usually ex-military rather than anything traditional.

The late afternoon drive was only spoilt by the return of the misfire in the van, as we accended the second major climb.  It struggled up the hill, seemed happier close to the top and on the decent, but then ran quite rough all the way into town, stalling twice, but restarting both times.

Early tomorrow I plan to change the air flow meter as that is the component associated with the Vanagon Syndrome I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, but the symptoms could also be caused by something like a sticking fuel injector or a faulty sensor so we will wait and see if this fixes the problem.

Lat 36 37.59 N
Long 101 47.85 E
Town Xining

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