It was late at night when we arrived at our hotel, but early the next morning we were up again for the rest of the drive to the main tourist site, a large nearby lake. I went into the hotel breakfast quickly before we left and was surprised to see it packed with tourists, who were all presumably making the same trip. I handed the guy on the door my breakfast voucher, he looked at it, nodded, and handed me a boiled egg in return before pointing me in the direction of the buffet.

       Back in the van for the drive, I was quite looking forward to a few undisturbed hours to catch up on the sleep I had been denied the night before. It soon became clear, though, that this was going to be difficult, because our tour guide for the day had a lot to tell us and seemed pretty much incapable of stopping the flow of talk. Once I had grudgingly accepted that her enthusiasm was going to triumph over my tiredness, I gave up trying to ignore her and started listening to what she was telling us. We were going to see the Kanasi Lake which, if you look at the map of China, you will see is basically right up in the corner of the top left-hand point, close to the border with Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. The main ethnic minority in the region was the Kazakhs, who despite Government efforts in Kazakhstan to boost economic well-being and to boost the population – including encouraging polygamy – seemed to prefer staying in China. Our guide was a Kazakh, and her name sounded suspiciously like Noodle.

       As the sun rose, we saw the landscape stretch out in front of us, a long, flat plain reaching to a range of mountains rising up behind. We started to climb up into the mountains, the clouds cleared, and we could see blue sky out in every direction. Then as we rounded one final corner, the Kanasi Lake came into view. Emerald green, the lake sat in the basin between the mountains, feeding the river that wound its way through the valleys back down to the plains below.