Thursday, November 15, 2007

Train ride to Tibet

The train ride from Beijing to Lhasa takes a little under 47 hours -
we<br><div class="gmail_quote">left Beijing around 9:30PM on the 12th
and arrived just after 8:00PM on<br>the 14th. Our hard sleeper cabin,
which we shared with 4 other people<br>was less than 6' wide and about
7' long - the bunks were stacked 3 high<br>on each side of the room.
After half an hour, just enough time for<br>Ellie and I to get settled
in, the lights went out and we fell fast<br>asleep. When I woke up the
next morning around 7AM we were stopped in<br>Xi'an, home to the Terra
Cotta Warriors and apparently as much<br>pollution as Beijing. For the
rest of the day we passed through towns,<br>some small and some huge
(million plus), and rural farm land. By the<br>evening we started to
get into the foothills of the Tibetan plateau.<br>The oxygen was on in
the train when I woke up the next morning, which<br>was good because I
had trouble breathing while falling asleep the night<br>before. We
spent most of that day around 4,500 meters surrounded by<br>snow,
mountains, yaks, wild horses, the occasional town of 50 or
fewer<br>people and what appeared to be miniature deer. By the time we
reached<br>Lhasa, the sun had set and we couldn't see much. The train
itself is<br>truly a feat of engineering, unfortunately they did not
accomplish as<br>much in the way of plumbing. Overall the ride was an
excellent<br>experience and one that I was glad to have had but if I
ever travel<br>from Beijisition: form-data; name="draft"

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