I took a trip to Tibet from June 12 – 21, accompanied by Swathish and three Germans: Swathish’s colleague Arndt, Arndt’s wife Carmen, and Carmen’s brother Gege. It was all Swathish’s idea.
All of my pictures can be found in this set on Flickr. A map of the places we went can be found here.
The Run-Up
Foreigners visiting Xizang Autonomous Region, as the political unit is officially known, are obliged to secure an official visiting permit before embarking on their trip. Most people do this through one of many tour agencies which secure the permit, arrange the tour guide and driver (which are also obliged to accompany foreigners), provide accommodation and handle other logistics. Swathish, his Chinese colleague Maggie and I visited a tour agency in west Beijing to discuss the specifics of what we wanted to do on our trip. Swathish had picked out some top-ten destinations and thrown them together into an itinerary, which the agency made sense of while we were there. I meant to do more research on them before this point but we were all quite busy. Maggie was crucial in our negotiations with the tour agency, who naturally tried to get as much money out of us as they could, but Maggie managed to get several hundred RMB knocked off the price per person. In the negotiations I mused that it would be great to visit one or two “less-visited” attractions that were beautiful but not overrun by tourists, and this tacked on an extra city and an extra day to our trip – to the complaint of no one.
The total price of the services provided by the tour agency, including a train ticket on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway from Xining to Lhasa, came to about 3,500 RMB. When I told this to others who had been to Tibet or knew people who had gone recently, they expressed surprise that the price was low, which was an unexpected reaction. After the whole experience was over, I realized that the best solution would have been to call around to get in direct touch with a Tibetan tour guide in Lhasa who could do the permits himself, as this would remove some of the costs and probably increase flexibility. Never the matter – we were locked in and ready to travel, after separately purchasing a flight to Xining and then the return flight from Lhasa to Beijing, all told doubling the price of the trip. Pain!
We met up at Arndt and Carmen’s apartment on the Friday evening before our departure to finalize plans and payment with the tour operator. Later we enjoyed a large amount of street food in the shadow of the CBD as we got to know each other. I left home to hit the sack in anticipation of a 5:00 AM rise time for our early flight, but the others stayed up to watch the first games of the World Cup. Remembering what happened to me the last time I made such a mistake, I decided to learn from history rather than repeat it.
Xining and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway
Our flight on June 12, a Saturday, left at about 7:30 AM. We landed in Xining, the eastern terminus of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. From there it connects to the rest of the country’s vast and expanding rail network. We could have taken the train from Beijing to Xining and then to Lhasa, but such a move would have added days to our journey and probably would be uncomfortable after a while. We arrived a bit before noon and our train did not leave until about 16:00, so we took the bus from the airport to the town center and walked to the railway station. A breeze blew and the sun was shining, so it was a pleasant time of day to sit out and enjoy some lunch on the terrace near the railway station. We sat for a good two hours after eating, enjoying an interesting cocktail of various flowers, sugars and dried fruits brewed into a tea with infinite refills for ten kuai. We must have enjoyed eight refills before the clouds rolled in and the breeze became a harsh gale, blowing all manner of dirt and construction dust in our faces. Large bottles of water were purchased for the train ride, and we retreated to the safety of the station.
After a long wait, we boarded the train. Our tickets were for “hard sleeper” berths, which means you get one out of six beds in a car. The top bunks are the cheapest, so we had five beds split among three next-door cells in the same car. We engaged in ticket-trading with our neighbors to secure five beds in the same compartment within an hour of getting on the train.
Thus began our 24-hour trip on the Qingzang Railway, one of the world’s modern wonders. Finished in 2006, it is an incredibly important and controversial development for a number of reasons. The most obvious is the facilitated connection of Lhasa and Xizang Autonomous Region in general to the rest of China, which can be seen as any mixture of enormous economic opportunity for Tibet, Beijing tightening its grip on the restive land, the facilitation of massive Han immigration to Tibet, and the opening of Tibet to the rest of China along with many other issues I am not astute enough to know or express. From an engineering standpoint the railway is a fascinating achievement. Over 500 km of its nearly 2,000 km length is on permafrost, the top layer of which melts during part of the year. The railway passes through Tanggula Pass at 5,072 m above sea level, making it the world’s highest railway. As if this were not enough, the tracks run through the seismically active Kunlun Mountains. Oxygen tents where the workers could breathe easier were set up to prevent altitude sickness. I read that during the railway’s construction, the Chinese authorities put up propaganda slogans to inspire the workers: “Never Admit Defeat” and “Conquer Nature” were the most memorable.
The railway is a must for anyone visiting Tibet for the above reasons as well as two more important ones: its enchanting scenery and its role in mitigating the effects of altitude sickness. My heart leaped with awe many times during the twelve or so hours of daylight we were awarded on the journey, and I wish my camera did not have to contend with the moving platform and snapping through smudgy glass to capture barren wastelands, mountains that looked straight out of Final Fantasy and herd after herd of wild yaks. Altitude sickness is something that any traveler to a place higher than 2,000 m should consider. Lhasa’s altitude is 3,490 m and most of the tourist areas in the surrounding area are higher, some as high as 5,000 m. Although it would be ideal to ascend 500 m every two days, starting at Xining’s 2,275 m and taking 24 hours to settle over 1 km higher is better than flying straight from sea level to Lhasa.
The following image was my favorite mountain on the railway. I wish we had passed much closer. It seemed to me to be a roadway leading to the heavens. Someday I hope to climb this mountain.
After the sun came to rest in the West, there was not much to do except read and chat. I read halfway through Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and drifted off while Swathish played Dire Straits and Queen from his phone. In the morning I awoke a bit later than the others, but the sun was only about one hour awake itself. Here we traversed the permafrost portion of the railway, having passed into Xizang during the dark hours of the morning. Whilst asleep my mouth dried out more than I ever recall, due to the rising altitude and resultant dehydration. I chugged a 1.5 liter bottle of water and got some breakfast, then I took a few pictures.
Most of the day I spent reading and sitting by the window, enjoying the beautiful endless landscape. While I sat in the corridor, a woman from the group of Koreans neighboring our compartment sat across from me. She spoke good English and claimed to be “from LA,” but I think she had just lived there for a while at some point in her life. When I asked what they were going to do in Tibet, she quickly glanced around and then did a short hands-together praying motion. I surmised that they were a group of evangelicals visiting Tibet for the stated purpose of tourism, but were really going to proselytize, which she practiced on me after twenty minutes of idle conversation.
Spaced out approximately every fifty kilometers or so (by my baseless estimation) was a tiny outpost tent made of thick thermal blanket material, situated a couple dozen meters from the track. Each one flew a modest-sized PRC flag and was staffed by a single soldier, who saluted the train as it passed. I noticed one such outpost for every settlement in Tibet, even hamlets of only ten dwellings. Paranoia strikes deep.
