#27 - Potala by night

Huatugou () is a small oil-drilling town at 38°08'60"N, 90°52'00"E and 2,859 m. It is in northwest Qinghai Province, near the border with Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.Perhaps there was more of a boom time in years past or hope of a boom yet to come, because many three-story concrete buildings stand empty. There doesn't seem to be anyone who speaks English. The PSB station is a block to the right after exiting the bus station.The town is near a small salty lake called Gaz Hure Hu. In the low hills near town, if you go wandering, you can see oil derricks, as oil is the economic mainstay of the area, and perhaps small black pools of thick tar seeping to the surface.In Huatugou, there is a very basic lodging across the street from the bus station for about Y20. Another traveler asked a cab for a three-star ( sn xng) guest house, and was taken to what he was told was the 'Petroleum Guesthouse' ( sh yu bn gun), which serves as the offices, restaurant and hotel for the oil company.There's a very basic restaurant just to the left after exiting the bus station, with soup, noodles and baozi, a restaurant at the Petroleum Guesthouse, and a small assortment of other eating establishments in town.From Huatugou, you can daily buses to Golmud / Ge'ermu (), Qinghai, (667 km) or Xining, Qinghai, (1220 km), or Dunhuang (), Gansu, 800 km east.Huatugou is 65 km east of Shimiankuang, an asbestos mine, which can be reached by taxi or by a twice-daily minibus.Except in winter when the rough road is closed to all but the most serious vehicles, there are one or two daily SUVs that carry people the 240 km between Charklik / Ruoqiang in southeast Xinjiang to Shimiankuang, across a rough road across the desert, through a narrow river canyon and over a 4,000 m pass.There is a twice-daily minibus between Shimiankuang and Huatugou, a small oil-drilling village about 60km east. The minibus generally waits for the public car from Charklik /Ruoqiang to arrive before returning to Huatugou.But if your public car is significantly delayed on the way from Charklik / Ruoqiang, you may need to wait quite a while for the next minibus or even spend the night, unless there is a taxi that can take you either to Mangnai Zhen( Mangya Zhen), an oil refinery village about 10 km southeast, or onward to Huatugou. Going the other direction, the first minibus from Huatugou meets up with the first public car heading northwest from Shimiankuang to Charklik / Ruoqiang.You can see images of Mangai Zhen and the trip between Charklik / Ruoqiang, Xinjiang and Golmud / Ge'ermu, Qinghai, here:flickr dot com slash photos slash centralasiatraveler slash sets slash 72157603896401527You can see maps and satellite images of places along this route, including a map of Qinghai and northwestern Qinghai, here:flickr dot com slash photos centralasiatraveler slash sets slash 72157603892712776All of northwest Qinghai, including Golmud / Ge'ermu, are part of Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture , which makes up about a third of Qinghai Province. This entire area was on the ancient trade route between the kingdoms of Mongolia and Tibet, and the majority of the local population are ethnic Mongolian and Tibetan, apart from recent Han immigrants. From the fifth through the ninth centuries, this was also along what is now called the Qinghai route, an alternative path for the Silk Road which bypassed the much longer Hexi Corridor route through Gansu. You can read more about this route here:dsr dot nii dot ac dot jp slash rarebook slash 07Mangnai Zhen and most of the northwestern Qinghai area is a "closed area," meaning you technically need a permit from a local PSB (police) station to travel here -- a simple procedure that usually takes a few minutes and costs Y50. In Golmud / Ge'ermu, the bus station will not sell you a ticket without this permit. In practice, in recent years, travelers from Charklik / Ruoqiang have been allowed to travel without this permit (since its PSB station doesn't have an Aliens Entry and Exit Office to furnish the permit) as long as the traveler stays along a straight route through the area.

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