Qinghai sits predominantly on the Tibetan plateau and is named after the Qinghai Lake, the most famous spot in the province. On our first full day, we set out en route to the Qilian Mountains, part of a region locally dubbed “the Switzerland of China”. This seemed a slightly strange title to me – would the countryside be full of chocolate? Or cheese? What it turned out to be full of was rape flowers, the bright-yellow fields contrasting with the green grass that surrounded them. We took the opportunity to stop and wander through the waist-high plants, everyone taking photographs of each other with the yellow backdrop as they stood amongst the flowers. Given the bright sunshine, many of the women were carrying umbrellas as parasols, and I could not help but wonder if they had all been watching Room with a View and were expecting some dashing gentlemen to run through the field and kiss them passionately. This was not happening in real life.