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Published: October 10th 2006
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Room with a view
This is a view from the train window. Saturday October 7, 2006 - Once on board the train, I found my cabin pretty quickly. It was a hard sleeper, as all my other trains in China have been. This means that there are 6 beds, three up on each side, and no door. There were already two Chinese men there ahead of me and they helped me put my backpack in the above storage space. Then I just sat around waiting for Brian to arrive. He was to be my train friend - the one I bought the tickets with. i hadn't seen him since we bought out tickets on my first day in Chengdu and as it got closer and closer to departure time, I got more and more worried. Finally, with about 5 minutes to spare, he was there, all sweaty, clearly in a hurry. Luckily he made the train anyway!
Once we got settled in a bit, we had a good chat, starting with how he came so close to missing the train. It was just a case of bad luck, as he had planned fairly well with a taxi and so on. But this is China and anything can happen. As we chatted I
Tibet Train
This is Brian, my train buddy from Chengdu to Lhasa. He made it on this train by the skin of his teeth. got a good look at the train itself. It is a new train, built specifically for the new rail line to Tibet that was only completed and opened this past July. The train was beuatiful - clean and clean. Enough said. There were clean bathrooms with paper, sinks with paper towels, beds that were spotless. Really nice. I could even see through the windows, they were so new! The train was also reasonably empty - there were only four of us in our compartment and no one in the three next to us on one side. We figured people would get on as we went along. There was no good way for us to know the route we would take, as the train was too new to be included in our guidebooks. We only knew it would take about 48 hours to get there. The train even has an oxygen supply built in and available to everyone as the train crosses over passes in the Himalayas over 5000m, or about 15000 feet.
At 8pm or so we had dinner. We both brought noodles with us that we just needed to add hot water to, as on the Transiberian. There
is no lack of hot drinking water on any train it seems. At 10pm the lights promptly went off and we got ready for bed and got into out little beds to read and sleep. By 10:05pm all the Chinese were asleep and I could brush my teeth in private - a concept not easy to come by in China. It was great.
Sunday - I didn't sleep so well last night as the man in the bunk next to me snored like a chainsaw. What a nightmare. Once I got up I had some breakfast - noodles - and sat around most of the day talking to Brian and watching the scenery go by. We had very little inofrmation about what we were doing, but there was a written running commentary in Chinese, with little updates in English occassionally. We found out we were usually going at 66 km/hr and the elevation at the time. It also told us the next stop, of which there were very few. At one point we were able to see that we were going all the way north to connect to the track that would then take us west. So the first
Silly girl
This is me being silly on the train. day was mostly spent going north. The scenery changed from green rolling hills to deserty hills to flat lands. This was broken up with noodles for three meals a day and some snacks. I read a little, I rested a little, mainly I talked to Brian. He's from England and has had an interesting life thus far - traveling, work, relationships, you name it, he's a soap opera. Fun.
We had two stops during the day where we could exit the train and walk around, and this was a treat. We could feel it was getting colder and that we were on our way! One stop was even for an hour so we were able to walk a bit and I talked for a while to a Malaysian family.
Towards the evening it was clear no one else was getting on and since we couldn't bear to sleep withe the snorer again, we moved all our important things to the cabin next door, and had it all to ourselves. Sleeping was so much easier (no snoring)! It was this evening that they handed out oxygen hoses to connect up with the oxygen supply in case we felt we
needed it. Heading up in elevation shortly. The heat also turned on in the evening as it was below freezing outside. Kept us toasty warm!
Monday - I woke up in the middle of the night and saw snow capped mountains by moonlight. It was beautiful. In the morning and all throughout the day we were treated to wonderful views of lakes and snow capped mountains. There was even wildlife to see - foxes and small rodents, cranes, vultures, and other birds, as well as shoats (sometimes they were sheep, sometimes they were goats that looked like sheep), and yak. Quite a treat. Music was usually playing in the train as well - mellow music in the morning and evening and crazy Chinese music or Britney Spears later in the day. Ate some more noodles for breakfast but by lunchtime
we had had enough. There was a cart that would come around with cooked Chinese food and we treated ourselves to this for lunch. It was fairly good really.
I had been waiting all day to get out of the train to stretch my legs at the next stop at 4:18pm, but much to my dismay it was a brief stop and we weren't allowed off. It was hot in the train and I at least took the oportunity to stick my head out of the open door.
We never needed the oxygen in the end but the elevation didn't go unnoticed. At times we were above 5000 meters, or over 15,000 feet. I got exhausted and had to lay down for a while. At this point we were also traveling at 90 km/hr on average, rather than the 66 km/hr we were doing uphill earlier on in the journey. We tried to drink a lot of fluids, as this is supposed to helpo with altitude sickness. We both experienced a bit of a headache, but not too bad. Brian also had pains in his back, but it might have had nothing to do with the altitude.
We arrived in Lhasa at 6:30 pm, right on time. Welcome to Tibet!
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Carol Swenson
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Thanks for the info!
Jenni It was great to read your blog concerning the train from Chengdu to Tibet. I have booked my 2 daughters (ages 8 and 11) and I on the train in March and have been worried about being able to see aout the windows, the general feeling of the train, etc. Thanks! I can't wait now. Fears relieved! Carol