Chaka Salt Lake, also name Tsaka Lake is located in Wulan County, Haixi Mongolian Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province. With an altitude of 3100m above sea level and 300km from Xining via Qinghai Lake. Chaka is Tibetan Language, meanining “salt pond”. Chaka Salt Lake is reopened to the public in June 2016, and got a lot of attention since then. It’s a “Qinghai top four scenery”, and rated as “one of the 55 places people must go” by Chinese National Geographic.
The Landscape of Chaka or Tsaka Salt Lake
The Chaka Salt Lake is well known as the “the mirror of the sky”, mountain surrounded the lake, the white pure lake reflects the azure sky if the weather is brilliant. Only one part of the lake is open to tourists and the other part is still producing salt and Salt factory is still operational. Once you entry the tourist zone. There are many rare sculptures that are made of salt to see. Travelers also can take a small train inside the tourist zone to enjoy Tsaka Salt Lake landscape. If you prefer to walk, it takes about 30 mins to get to the central of the lake. The lake is shallow and white, it became one of the photography feature. Many Chinese tourists walk inside the lake by barefeet to pose a photo.
A white yak is standing in the Tsaka Salt Lake
Because of its natural advantage, the salt lake could be a heavenly place for photographer working on a great shot during the day and night. Night fall on the lake, “mirror of the sky” turns to a sky full of twinkling star, it’s just like a paradise under the starry sky Lake, azure and starry sky makes a good decoration in Tibetan plateau.
The best time to go Salt lake is from June to middle of September when the weather is warm enough to heat up the salt so that you could walk in the salt. In winter, you can enjoy the lake surrounded by snowcapped mountain.
As it’s so special and spectacular, tons of people come for it, which is a good thing to be admired, on the other hand, it brings out some negative consequence like pollutions. The lake was closed for a while because the management office had to clean up the lake.
The train station sign between the entry point and view point
If you plan to stop by Qinghai Lake on the way to Salt Lake, it might be tight to visit Salt Lake and Qinghai Lake in one day. The common practice is that drive from Xining to Qinghai Lake after that either stay in Heimahe township to see the sunset and sunrise of Qinghai Lake. Then next day drive to Tsaka Lake and return back to Xining in the afternoon. Or you can spend the night in Tsaka Lake, there is one hotel at the Tsaka Lake where you can stay for the night.
