Nagqu is the biggest town you will meet on the northern half of the Tibetan plateau, and it feels like a frontier. It sits at roughly 4,500 metres on the open grassland between the Tanggula range and Lhasa, a high, cold country of yak herders, black tents and wide rolling pasture, and the Chinese name for it is Naqu. The Tibetan name means the black river, and the pastures around it have fed nomadic families for centuries.
Every August the town holds a horse festival that draws herders from across the region, with races, archery, wrestling and a great deal of tea. The tents spread across the grassland, riders in colourful dress gallop past, and the whole scene is one of the liveliest in Tibet. Outside festival time Nagqu is a working place, a crossroads for trucks on the Qinghai-Tibet highway and the road east toward Sichuan, with straight streets, shops, noodle restaurants and a certain frontier toughness.
The highway through here is smooth and fast by plateau standards, but altitude changes everything. Engines lose power in thin air, a carburetted bike may run rich and cough, and riders themselves tire more quickly and think more slowly. Sleep at this height can be poor, headaches are common, and anyone arriving from low ground should take it easy. The weather is harsh: strong winds, hail and snow can arrive in any month, and temperatures swing hard between day and night.
There is plenty of fuel in town, as you would expect of a place of thirty thousand people on a major road, and it is the sensible place to top the tank before the long stretches on either side. Food is simple and filling, with yak meat, noodles and butter tea, and a warm room is welcome after a day in the wind. Lhasa lies a long day to the south, and the road in between drops gradually off the high grassland toward the valleys of central Tibet.
For foreign visitors, travel on this route requires permits and normally a guide, and the rules change, so confirm everything with an operator before you plan. The light in the early morning is wonderful, low and clear over a pale landscape, and a short walk before the traffic wakes up is a good way to meet the place.