This was going to be another long travelling day.

Before leaving for Golmud we visited The Magao Grottoes (Caves).
The artistic features of the treasured Buddhist murals represent the artistic style of the Northern Wei (386-543), Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties through the combination of the architecture, statues and murals in the caves.
The Mogao Caves also known as ‘The Caves of the Thousand Buddhas’ form a system of 492 temples 25 km (16 miles) southeast of the center of Dunhuang. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. The first caves were dug out in 366 CE as places of Buddhist meditation and worship. The Mogao Caves are the best known of the three famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China.

We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the caves, but incredible to think some of what we saw was over a 1000 years old!

Click Here to See The Magao Cave Video

Now came the time for our long drive – from Dunhuang to Golmud. This was our route:

Driver rotation system is working well. We do about two to three hours each and change. Conversation still crisp, intense and prickly at times. Good and nothing taken personally.

Beautiful scenery along this route, we also reached altitude over 12,000 feet in some parts.

Normally the check points we have crossed have been, for the best part, relatively straight forward. But a checkpoint we were stopped on route to Golmud, was a little different.

As we approached, the stationed officials indicated to us to stop the vehicle. I could see an armed sentry, stationed on a large covered platform with the end of the rifle just visible. He was about 25 yards away from us. The ground officials asked for the paperwork and Bing our guide got out with the information. Within the next minute the sentry guard had turned around from his original position (and I think this next bit was quite dramatic), he looked at us with quite a serious face but he was now engaged and pointing the rifle squarely at the windscreen – Manvir was driving and I was the passenger in the front seat – although we carried on talking normally inside the car, this was very unnerving, haven’t had a armed rifle pointed at me – ever!

Paperwork intact, we swiftly moved on. Obviously, for the present anyway, there is no photographic evidence to show you – but it did feel too close for comfort.

The roads were brilliant and we made excellent time and were in Golmud at 6:30 pm. We were going to check into a hotel, bags almost unloaded, but were told the hotel was not registered to accept tourists. So we had to find someplace else. It was not a problem as we are now used to searching a place to stay at and were soon at another hotel.

The place seems like a normal town, slightly quiet but a lot more Tibetan looking people.