Qinghai on My Mind

Still， as both Xinjiang and Tibet autonomous regionswere earning greater worldwide fame， Qinghai Province，their neighbor， remained an oft-forgotten 721，000 squarekilometers. Representing the northeastern part of theQinghai-Tibet Plateau， it lagged behind in terms of tour-ism development， with annual visitor totals even fewerthan some single \"water town\" destinations in the south.The province does have a couple factors working in its fa-vor: It is the starting point of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway(the world's first trans-plateau line)， and its Qinghai Lakeis the only saltwater lake in inland China.