The Train to Tibet

The sunrise woke me up this morning. There’s pure, beautiful sunlight absolutely pouring into our cabin on the T27 train to Tibet. Ethan and John are still sleeping, so I’ve pulled out my Mac to start a blog entry for today. There’s a loud hissing, and I’m pretty sure this means that they’re pumping oxygen into the train to balance the effects of the altitude. Though it may not have been yesterday, today this T27 will be the highest altitude train in the world. One of my thrilling observations yesterday was that I don’t know anybody who has ever been to Tibet. I’m going to do something completely new and original that none of my friends or family has ever done. John and Ethan are in the same boat. As such, I feel some responsibility to blog diligently.

Of course, I know my family isn’t reading my blog right now—they’re in Mackinaw! Every year since before I was born, my family has spent Labor Day weekend in Mackinaw, Michigan. On Labor Day, the Mackinaw Bridge is open to pedestrians, and it is the only day that you can walk the 5 miles between the 2 peninsulas of Michigan. Though I’ve missed a few years due to other commitments, I’ve been in Mackinaw more Labor Days than I have not, and every year I don’t go, I’m a little nostalgic for the good times I’ve had there, at the Old Mill Creek Campground.

But now, I’m looking out the window of my soft sleeper cabin over vast expanses of barren fields, which dead end into the foothills of the mountains, and this morning for the first time, I can see some snowcaps.

Friday night, after dinner, we popped into a grocery store to pick up some supplies for the trip, assuming that snack food vending would not be plentiful on the train, and we were right. We found some unique snacks like Terra Cotta Warrior Sesame Snacks, dried kiwi, banana chips, and peanut brittle. We also picked up some old standbys like Dove bars, Oreos, and Snickers. Beijing to Xi’an was a 12-hour train, and now the Xi’an to Lhasa train is a 36-hour journey.

Saturday morning, we got up at 6am and showered. Because we’d only paid for a standard room and added a 3rd person, we were only allowed 2 breakfasts, so Ethan and I went to breakfast and snuck some bread and fruit back to the room for John. After waiting for the maid to check our room, we were finally checked out at 7:20, and hopped in a taxi to the train station, where there was incredible traffic for a Saturday morning. We fought through the crowd and found our way to the “Waiting Room for Tibet.” In the waiting room, we made the acquaintance of 2 other Westerners, Dan and Susie, who are from Hungary. They’re on their way to bike from Lhasa to Nepal as part of a year-long tour around the world. They were told that the train ticket from Xi’an to Lhasa was impossible to get, so they paid about $200 US to get the ticket from a tour company, although the face value was $142. Once again, we were glad we risked waiting in line for our train tickets.



After 2 false starts and being yelled at in Chinese by the attendant—we could understand “sit down and wait” from her hand gestures—we were allowed to board the train, which was 20 minutes late. After our train had left Beijing on time, this caused a little concern on our part that we would miss the train. When we found our sleeper car, we found that it had been used for the overnight trip from Beijing to Xi’an, but there seemed to be no effort to clean it up. The tablecloth was food-stained, and there was a lot of hair in each of our beds. We got our suitcases settled in the overhead bin, and through our hand motions managed to get the conductor to find us some new sheets. He offered us only 3 fresh bottom sheets, so we changed these out, put our jackets over the used pillows, and shook out the duvets. Bathrooms on the train don’t stay clean either, and Chinese men don’t seem to have very good aim when they stand, leaving a puddle around the toilet. The difference between a soft sleeper (which we booked,) and a hard sleeper, is that we have 4 beds in the room, and there is a door. As I ventured down the train, I saw the hard sleepers, which have 6 bunks per room and no door. People were eating their instant noodle bowls and playing cards in the hallway or on their lower bunks.



We filled our day with reading (I’m reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,) playing games (Tetris, Snood,) sleeping (I think our bodies are finally realizing that they can recover from the sleep deprivation we put them through during the Olympic period,) and watching DVDs on our laptops (I’m halfway through Ugly Betty Season 1,) and watching the sights out the window. There were some beautiful small mountains, some of which had been stepped for farming, giving them a very exotic feel. For lunch, we ventured down to the dining car for some Kung Pao Chicken with rice. When the sun set, and the train was out in the middle of nowhere, we saw amazing stars with a clarity that I may never have seen in my life. With no light pollution, every constellation looked like it could be touched, and the picture window of our cabin looked like the roof of a planetarium. There was no light in or out to spoil the grandeur of the stars.