Daniel Dumbrill
The road from Sayram Lake down to Yining was easily one of the three most beautiful stretches of our entire 13,000 km trip. We had no idea what Guozigou Bridge was, or that we were even crossing it. We only realized afterwards that it’s a specific attraction — but we could tell how special it was while we were on it.
Daniel Dumbrill
Sayram Lake was the first place we really started hitting heavy traffic, especially inside the scenic area itself. It was still well worth it. We camped here for two nights and found a nice corner spot for the RV. This is Xinjiang’s highest and largest alpine lake — about 458 km² of water, sitting at around 2,070 m, with a max depth of about 92 m. The scenic area around it is much bigger, roughly 1,300 km². It’s an endorheic lake, meaning no river flows out. The water just sits there, fed by snowmelt and springs. The paved loop road around it is about 90–93 km. I unexpectedly ended up doing a big stretch of that road by scooter. When I took it off the back of the RV, I found a screw lodged in the rear tire. I found a repair guy, but the price for him to come into the scenic area was much higher than me riding out to him. So I tightened the screw, pumped the tire up, took a pump with me, and happily spent about an hour each way riding around the lake to meet him at one of the exits. He originally said 90 RMB. After a quick job he only charged me 60, even though I’d already agreed to the higher price. Once again, experiences like this are incredibly common in Xinjiang.