ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <TITLE>Train to Tibet - TibetTravel.Org</TITLE> <meta name="description" content="Experience on train to Tibet."> <meta name="keywords" content="tibet train"> <link href="http://www.tibettravel.org/tibettravel/css/list.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /> <link href="http://www.tibettravel.org/tibettravel/css/list_mod.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /> </head> <body> <div id="warrper"> <div id="header"> <div id="top"> <div id="left"><strong>Service Call:</strong>(+86)-28-85552138 <strong> Tibet Travel Service and Tibet Tour Operator</strong></div> <div id="right"> <a href="http://www.tibet-travel.net/" target="_blank" class="style63">Francais</a> | <a href="http://www.chinese-tours.com" target="_blank" class="style63">Japanese</a> | <a href="http://www.china-panda.com" target="_blank" class="white">Sichuan</a> | <a href="http://www.6trip.com" target="_blank" class="white">Yuannan</a> | <a href="http://www.57qh.com" target="_blank" class="white">Qinghai</a> </div> </div><!--/ top--> <div id="head_banner"> <div id="logo"></div> <div id="headPic"><a href="http://www.tibettravel.org"><img src="http://www.tibettravel.org/images/pic.jpg" alt="Tibettravel.Org new edition website" border="0" ></a></div> <div id="server"> <p class="STYLE10">24/7 SERVICE</p> <p>Tel: (+86)-28-85552138</p> <p>Email: <a href="mailto:inquiry@tibettravel.org" >inquiry@tibettravel.org</a></p> <p>Online Contact:<a href="skype:china3737?call"><img src="http://www.tibettravel.org/tibettravel/list/image/skype.png" alt="Call me!" width="45" height=20 border=0></a><a href="msnim:chat?contact=china3737@hotmail.com"><img height=20 alt="Call me!" src="http://www.tibettravel.org/tibettravel/list/image/msn.gif" border=0></a> <!--MSN conversation over --></p> </div><!--/ server--> </div><!--/ head_banner--> <div id="nav"> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.tibettravel.org/"><span>Home</span></a></li> <li><a href="/tibet-tour/"><span>Tibet Tours</span></a></li> <li><a href="/tibet-hotel/"><span>Tibet Hotels</span></a></li> <li><a href="/flights-to-tibet/"><span>Flights to Tibet</span></a></li> <li><a href="/tibet-train/"><span>Tibet Train</span></a></li> <li><a href="/tibet-travel-guide/"><span>Tibet Travel Guide</span></a></li> <li><a href="/tibettravel/list/list_2556_1.html" class="nav_red"><span>Group Tours</span></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.tibettravel.org/tibettravel/list/list_2044_1.html"><span>About Tibet</span></a></li> <li><a href="/tibettravel/Html/20063231201-1.html"><span>About Us</span></a></li> <li><a href="/tibettravel/feedback/" class="last"><span>Feedback</span></a></li> </ul> </div><!--/ nav--> </div><!--/ header--> <div id="main"> <div id="leftMain"> <div id="add"> <p><a href="http://www.tibettravel.org">Home</a><xoYu_CMS_CODE:NEWS:NEWS_TYPE> > <a href="../list/list_2008_1.Html">Tibet Transportation</a> > <a href="../list/list_2827_1.Html">Trains to Tibet</a> > <a href="../list/list_2830_1.Html">Tibet Train News</a></xoYu_CMS_CODE:NEWS:NEWS_TYPE></p> </div><!--/ add--> <div id="leftMainContent"> <h1 class="title">Train to Tibet</h1> <p class="atten"> <span></span> </p> <div class="txt"> <P>Two-thousand-five-hundred miles over two days, a journey through some of China's biggest cities, long stretches of countryside and over the world's highest-altitude railroad pass: The Lhasa Express had captivated me ever since the Chinese government began building its final leg in 2001.</P> <P>And so on a muggy Beijing evening in August, I clutched a tiny, pink ticket and worked my way through thousands of Chinese at Beijing's West Train Station.</P> <P>When I arrived at my bunk  one of six 7-by-3-foot-wide beds in a spotless semi-enclosed room  I tucked my luggage into an overhead rack and set about meeting my new roommates.</P> <P>First to arrive were Xia Yan, a 35-year-old gardener, and her boyfriend Liu Yan, a Beijing taxi driver. They hadn't taken a vacation "since the 1990s," Xia said, and were going to do it right  the train trip, followed by three weeks in Tibet. "We haven't left Beijing for so long that we want to see the whole country," said Liu, a beefy man with a round, friendly face.</P> <P>I also wanted to see the width of China. Many tourists to the Middle Kingdom spend their trips shuttling between cities on planes. But 60 percent of Chinese live in the countryside, and most of eastern China is covered with a patchwork of farms and villages.</P> <P>The train would give me a ground-level tour of the country and its people before depositing me  48 hours later  in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.</P> <P>Conservationists have protested what they say is damage to the fragile Tibetan countryside by developments like the railway.</P> <P>The train price was attractive: A hard sleeper ticket cost me 789 Chinese yuan, just under $100. Even with the $35 fee I paid a tourist agency to get the ticket and the $25 fee for a permit to enter Tibet, the price was half of a one-way plane fare from Beijing to Lhasa.</P> <P>If I had booked earlier I could have gotten a soft-sleeper berth  similar to the hard-sleeper bunks but with four people in each TV-equipped room and a selection of free movies offered on DVD  for $56 more. For travelers with tight budgets and high pain thresholds, hard seats (just that) sell for $48.</P> <P>I was happy to forgo the television and as we pulled out of Beijing I sat by a large window and watched steel-and-glass towers give way to squat Stalinist architecture and then the thick night of China's countryside. Like oases in a desert, the dim lights of rural homes cut through the darkness and I imagined the farmers resting, perhaps playing mahjong, after a long day's work.</P> <P>Before going to bed I bought a Chinese beer for 60 cents from a train food cart and chatted with Xia and Liu. Liu, a Buddhist, looked forward to visiting Lhasa's Jokhang Temple, a 1,300-year-old shrine that is the object of countless pilgrimages. Xia was simply happy to be moving; for the next two days she fed me candy and dried beef and regaled me with stories about growing up in Beijing.</P> <P>After a good night's sleep rocked by the slight swaying of the train (and helped by the foam earplugs and light-blocking eye-mask I had brought) I woke to the improbable view of sheep. We had passed through the provinces of Hebei and Henan and had entered Shaanxi, famous for its army of terra-cotta soldiers in Xian, and a shepherd was herding the animals at the edge of cornfields.</P> <P>For much of the day I alternated between talking with other passengers, reading Paul Theroux's epic-travelogue "The Great Railway Bazaar" and watching passing scenery.</P> <P>In Xian, where some passengers break their journey for a few days, we stopped long enough to buy delicious pork-stuffed breads from a trackside vendor. Later, I had lunch in the train's dining car, a spotless room with a dozen tables adorned with a red silk rose. I ate with Shen Guomin, a 50-year-old Beijing engineer who ordered Gong Bao chicken, a spicy mix of diced chicken, carrots, peanuts and cucumbers, and fish-taste shredded pork, a good (but surprisingly un-fishy) dish made with bamboo shoots and green onions.</P> <P>As we ate, we talked politics. "The biggest problem in China is the crisis in faith," Shen said. "When I grew up we believed in the Communist Party, but now people have nothing to believe in."</P> <P>The discussion, the food, the view, the price ($6)  everything was excellent, and I was reminded of a passage from Robert Louis Stevenson's book "Ordered South." The chief attraction of railroad travel, he wrote, is that "the speed is so easy, and the train disturbs so little the scenes through which it takes us, that our hearts become full of the placidity and stillness of the country; and while the body is being bourne forward in the flying chain of carriages, the thoughts alight, as the humour moves them, at unfrequented stations."</P> <P>I woke with a thud the next morning as two 3,800-horsepower engines were added to the train at Golmud, a Wild-West frontier town in Qinghai province and the beginning of the 713-mile-long line to Lhasa.</P> <P>From Golmud the land rises through the Kunlun Mountains and onto the Tibetan Plateau, with an average altitude of 13,123 feet, truly the world's roof. The highest spot on the Qinghai-Tibet line is the 16,633-foot Tanggula Pass, an arid grassland more than 2,000 feet higher than the peak of Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the continental U.S.</P> <P>Because of the altitude more than half of the Golmud-to-Lhasa line is built on permafrost, permanently frozen earth that shifts and bulges in the afternoon sun. Building the $4 billion route required expensive technology, including planting ammonia-filled rods in the ground to whisk heat away from the earth.</P> <P>For passengers, though, the altitude creates other concerns: As the train began to climb an announcement in English warned that "before you start your trip to the Tibetan Plateau you should participate in some aerobic exercises such as swimming, jogging and weightlifting."</P> <P>I hunted down a steward who told me that no one had died of altitude sickness on the train (though several have been taken to a Lhasa hospital after arrival). He handed me plastic tubing I could use to breath oxygenated air from an outlet near my bunk.</P> <P>Partly reassured  though feeling slightly faint  I sat down to watch the scenery and quickly spotted herds of wild Tibetan antelope, a beautiful animal that has been heavily poached in China for its fine fur, and squat donkeys that galloped across the grassland. Eagles drew long lazy circles in the massive blue sky above.</P> <P>The Lhasa Express makes two stops in Tibet and I decided to break my trip in Naqu, a small Tibetan city that is home to the region's biggest horseracing festival each August. At the red-and-white tiled rail station, I bid farewell to my new friends, jotted down a few phone numbers and stepped out into strong sunshine.</P> <P>The next day I watched Tibetan riders, many of them nomad yak herders, lean from atop galloping horses to grab silk scarves from the ground, a seemingly impossible task. In another contest children raced Tibetan stallions across the grasslands for several miles.</P> <P>From Naqu I had hoped to buy a second train ticket for the five-hour journey to Lhasa but because train service had begun recently, tickets are only available in larger cities. "The government is worried about security," said a glum-faced station manager.</P> <P>Instead I caught a long-distance bus along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, which mostly follows the train tracks. 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