Blogs from Xining, Qinghai, China, Asia - page 2

In South America we discovered the joys of bus travel. In China it has definitely been the turn of the train. If you want to see a lot of country in a short space of time in relative comfort, take the train. I just hope you like pot noodles! In Lhasa train station we were at the head of the queue. Once the signal was given we marched after the main conductor and made our way to the eerily empty platform. The Lhasa train was more modern than the other trains we've been on and these trains are considered to be very prestigious. We even noticed people standing to attention as it passed by. As we settled in for 24 hours in the 6 berth hard sleeper cabin, we awaited the fifth and sixth passenger to ... read more

From Chengdu we travelled further to north, currently we are in Xining. Here the weather is really wintery now, freezing nights, mountains, we can really feel the proximity of the Himalayas. Our mission in Xining was to acclimatise to higher altitude (currently at 2200 m) and to arrange our travel permits and tour to Tibet. They say the closer you arrange the trip to Tibet the cheaper the price gets. Yes, this is true. Yesterday we applied for all the papers, and tomorrow we are to be on the train to Lhasa, which is Tibet's capital. We will take the famous trans-Himalayan railway, which goes at an average altitude of 4000 meters with the peak of 5000 meters at a pass (don't remember the name, but will give you precise details in our Tibet blog entry). ... read more

Day 1 July 7, 2008 I am on a train to Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province. I will be here for the next ten days or so teaching English to children in the countryside. After arriving at the train station, we will take a bus to Ledu County. This is all part of the Summer Service Learning Program sponsored by the Poverty Alleviation Office at Tsinghua University. My traveling companions include one female and four male Tsinghua students, a Chinese-American who just graduated from Duke University and a female professor from the University of South Floriay. We will later be joined by a female Chinese teacher who works at an elementary school at Tsinghua. I am very excited for this opportunity. It's not every day that you can just walk into a rural, non-touristy area ... read more

On our last day in Tibet we visited the family of our guide in their small village between Lhasa and Shigatse. The village was shielded from the road by a high embankment and consisted of about thirty families. The small traditional houses were without running water or indoor plumbing. Our guide showed us the (very public) place outdoors designated for bathing. Though there was a small manmade channel running in back of the houses for irrigation, we were told for drinking, bathing, and other purposes water was carried up from the river in buckets. The river ran far below, down a fairly steep embankment broken only by the winding road. We climbed a ladder into the house, as the ground floor was reserved for the livestock: sheep, goats, chickens, cattle, yaks, etc. Inside, the family ... read more