Qinghai from Luoyang: Qinghai Lake, Chaka, Guide and Kumbum, 6 Days

Arrive in Xining around midday at twenty-two hundred metres, which you barely notice until you walk fast and find yourself short of breath. Leave the bags at the hotel and keep the afternoon loose, wandering outside the Dongguan mosque as worshippers drift in from the lanes. Toward evening, find a bowl of boiled tea on Mojia Street with hand-grabbed mutton and cold noodles, the meat dipped in pepper salt, the fat not greasy at all. It gets dark early and the streets go quiet by eight, so sleep early.

Attraction introduction: Xining is the capital of Qinghai, set on the Huangshui River at about twenty-two hundred metres, the first step up onto the plateau. The Dongguan mosque is one of the larger mosques in the northwest, its Chinese halls mixed with Islamic detail. Mojia Street is where locals actually shop and eat, with cold noodles, fermented oats and hand-grabbed mutton all easy to find.

Tips: Skip long hot showers and hard exercise on day one, since altitude sickness is usually just fatigue. Guests generally find the dryness harder than the cold, so lip balm and moisturiser come out the same day. In practice, eat a lighter dinner, put the phone down an hour before bed, and let the body adjust first.

Leave at eight for Huangzhong, twenty-five kilometres and a little over half an hour to Kumbum. The monastery climbs the hillside in tiers, rows of prayer wheels running along the base of the walls. In front of the Great Golden Tile Hall, pilgrims are working through full prostrations on boards worn shiny. The butter sculpture hall is kept cold, because the figures are modelled in butter itself, colours almost too bright, remade every year. Noodle soup outside the gate for lunch, then over the Laji Pass, where the wind at thirty-eight hundred metres makes it hard to stand, two photographs and back into the car. The road drops into Guide with the Yellow River running green in the valley below.

Attraction introduction: Kumbum is one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school and the birthplace of Tsongkhapa, the name meaning ten thousand images, since the temple came after the stupa. Its butter sculptures, murals and applique thangka are known as the three arts, the butter figures modelled at low temperature and usually telling Buddhist stories. The Laji Pass is the divide between Xining and Guide at roughly thirty-eight hundred metres, prayer flags crowding the saddle.

Tips: Watch for the signs barring photography in certain halls, and flash is forbidden in the butter sculpture hall. Guests generally find the steps numerous at twenty-seven hundred metres and dizziness comes from hurrying, so slow down. In practice, the pass is exposed, so put your hat on before stepping out and keep the stop under ten minutes.

The morning belongs to the river. At Guide the water runs wide and slow, and from the bridge you can count the stones on the bed through the jade green surface. Old men fish from the bank and stay all morning. Then the national geopark, where the Ashigong cliffs look cut with a blade, red, yellow and grey bands pressed one on another, the surface worn into fine ridges by wind. Lunch back in the county town, then west toward Gonghe across open grassland, where cattle and sheep cross the road whenever they please and the car cannot go fast.

Attraction introduction: The Yellow River crosses Guide between the Gonghe basin and the mountains, running slow and low in sediment, which is why people say the Yellow River is clear at Guide. The geopark is built around the Ashigong rainbow cliffs, a landscape of danxia and coloured conglomerate, the bands red, yellow and grey according to mineral content, cut into peaks and gullies by long weathering.

Tips: There is no shade in the park and the ultraviolet is stronger than on the plains, so bring a hat and dark glasses. Guests generally find the side light of afternoon saturates the colours, while mornings look grey. In practice, the driving today is long, so do not linger over lunch; two hundred kilometres remain before dark, and the lake hotel is the day end.

Up at half past six for the sunrise, down jacket zipped to the chin against the wind. The sun lifts over the ridge on the far shore, orange first, then the whole lake turns lead grey. Walk the boardwalk at Erlangjian in the morning with nobody else on the shore, a skin of thin ice in the shallows cracking underfoot. Lunch by the lake, then west along the ring road, the grass gone yellow and snow showing on distant summits. Reach Chaka town by evening, check in, and turn in early for the salt lake tomorrow.

Attraction introduction: Qinghai Lake is the largest inland saltwater lake in the country, more than four thousand square kilometres at about thirty-two hundred metres, ringed by the Datong, Riyue and Qinghai Nan mountains. Erlangjian is the earliest developed stretch of shoreline, its boardwalk pushing out over the water. From November the edges begin to freeze, and mornings leave a white shell of ice along the bank where wind piles the broken pieces into lines.

Tips: At thirty-two hundred metres you will be short of breath if you hurry, and the temperature swing around sunrise can reach fifteen degrees. Guests generally find a down jacket under a shell the most practical combination, and a hat is not optional. In practice, the ring road is strictly policed, so do not press the driver, and arrive at Chaka late rather than overtake on a bend.

Into the salt lake in the morning, the little train carrying you out over water so white it glares, kilometres of it. Shoe covers go on before you step down, the salt crunching underfoot, and when the surface stills it holds the whole sky and the mountains behind. The reflection actually sharpens as the light hardens toward midday, so stand still and wait for the water to flatten before pressing the shutter. Lunch in town, then over the Riyue Pass, prayer flags snapping, the sun and moon pavilions facing opposite directions, farmland on one side of the ridge and grazing land on the other. Back in Xining by evening.

Attraction introduction: Chaka sits at Chaka town in Ulan county, about one hundred and five square kilometres of shallow brine over a thick crust of crystallised salt, so reflective that it is called the mirror of the sky. A small train and viewing walkways cross the flats, and salt has been harvested here since far back in history. The Riyue Pass marks the boundary between farming and herding country at around thirty-five hundred metres, and local storytelling attaches the Princess Wencheng legend to it.

Tips: The glare is punishing, and without dark glasses your eyes ache within half a day, so top up the sun cream as well. Guests generally find the shoe covers need to fit properly, since a loose pair lets water in and a tight one pinches. In practice, keep the walk under two hours and rinse the salt off afterwards, because it dries and cracks the skin.

Nothing rushed on the last day. Sleep in, then wander Shuijing Lane where dried yak beef, black goji and barley wine are piled on the stalls, taste before buying. Lunch is a bowl of noodle flakes with mutton and potato in the broth. Then off to the flight or the train, and a last look at the Huangshui River: six days went from twenty-two hundred metres up to thirty-eight and back again, with the scenery changing the whole way.

Attraction introduction: Xining stood where the southern Silk Road met the Tang-Tubo road, and Shuijing Lane is one of the older markets in the city, gathering dried goods, mutton and handicrafts. The Huangshui River runs west to east through the city as a major upper tributary of the Yellow River, and its valley has been farmed since very early times.

Tips: Dried beef and black goji cost noticeably more at the airport, and prices in Shuijing Lane can be negotiated. Guests generally find loose dried goods better value than boxed ones, but check the production date. In practice, keep the last day to half a day and allow an hour for the airport, since fog is common on winter roads.