17/3/07 - 18/3/07: 29 hours on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway

After an uneventful bus ride back through the desert and a not-so-comfortable (they had the heating turned up too high) train ride on the 16th, we'd made it back to Lanzhou from Dunhuang in one piece and at long last I was waiting for my Qinghai-Tibet train! Catching this train was the sole original reason for my trip to China, the story goes like this:

I was talking to Richard at the Accenture cocktail party all those months ago back in late 2006 and he was telling me about his recent trip to Tibet via the then newly opened railway. I found it quite interesting but gave it no further thought. A few days later though, by sheer coincidence I saw a documentary on the railway explaining that it was the highest railway in the world and that it was some sort of technological marvel so it was at that point I thought to myself "This is really interesting, I'm gonna take a ride on this" and bought tickets that night to go to China for 2 months. Everything decision I've made since then can be traced back to that fateful night and explained by domino effect or chaos theory =) Enough crap, some facts now...

As is my usual habit in China I mulled around on the platform for the last 15 minutes before my train departed just to admire/inspect the train. The Qing-Zang 青藏 railway carriages are much sturdier than usual with sealed triple glazed windows and the outside shell of the carriage looks like its pressed from a single sheet of alloy giving the impression of slickness - the carriages are painted in the usual 'Army tank green' of the Northern China railways with 2 yellow cheatlines running above and below the windows.

When I stepped inside I was greeted with fully carpeted floors, modern and solid furnishings and emergency oxygen outlets at the head of every bunk. Even the hot water flasks they use in the carriages look futuristic (designed by Ikea perhaps?) and for the Chinese, a ride on this train is like a ride on the Concorde for them. I had the most comfortable sleep last night and it was amazing to wake up near Golmud to the view of snow capped peaks passing us by as we cruised in smooth air-conditioned comfort over flat permafrost valleys at 4500m above sea level.

The scenery was best this morning (the 18th) between 10 and midday as the sun rose - at this altitude the sky and sun look as they do when you look outside the window of an airliner. The sun is extremely bright and the sky a darker shade of blue than normal. Out here it was just hours and hours of white permafrost, forzen lakes until we crossed the Tangula mountain range 5100m above sea level. The cabins are unpressurised to help the passengers acclimatise to the higher altitudes but 5000m+ was too much for me to take so I went back to sleep again at 12:30pm. I didn't want to use the oxygen because I wanted my body to acclimatise. I slept until above 4:30pm by which time we were crossing the flat grassy plateaus north of Amdo.

My long hours on the train have given me time to read Polly Evans' "Fried Eggs with Chopsticks" - a wonderful read for those who want to armchair travel to China, highly recommended! The train food has been reasonable as well, I've been paying 15rmb each time for a 'lunchbox' with rice, vegetables and sauteed Yak meat everytime I've felt hungry. I have a real aversion to instant noodles now and I don't mind paying the extra for 'real' food. I'll be signing off here as Lhasa is about 1.5 hours away and I need to pack my stuff up.