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Nearly 3000m up on the plateau, GOLMUD is an incredibly isolated city, even by the standards of northwest China. It still has no airport and lies at least sixteen hours away from the nearest sizeable town by the fastest possible means of transport. In spite of this, it still manages to be the second largest city in Qinghai, with a population of around 130,000. This is because it's a city of immigrants - Han Chinese have been moved in here over the years to work the potash plants from which Golmud earns its living. It's hard to imagine that anyone would have come to live in such a cold and arid place otherwise. Geographically, Golmud is located close to the massive Kunlun Mountains to the south, and to the Cai Erhan Salt Lake to the north. Both are very scenic in parts, though they remain as yet virtually unexplored by foreign tourists.

For travellers, the city is really only interesting as a transit point between Xining in the east, Dunhuang in the north and Lhasa in the south - Golmud is the only place in China from where foreign tourists are officially allowed to cross by land to Tibet .