Are we there yet?

July 5th-7th 2010

At 7:50 PM on July 5th our train left Shanghai headed for Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and at 11,800 feet above sea level one of the highest cities in the world. When we purchased our train tickets there were two soft sleepers and two hard sleepers available (at this time I was traveling with Dirk, Cooper, and Nick another classmate from South Carolina), the difference between the two tickets was the number of people in the cabins (4 in a soft and 6 in a hard) as well as the ability to have a locked and closed door (on a soft) and no door on a hard. We boarded the train and looked at each other and started asking who had the great idea of taking a train across China, we all blamed Dirk because when in doubt blame Dirk. We began debating amongst each other how long of a ride the trip was scheduled to be all we could remember was we were looking at somewhere between 44 and 50 hours on the train (we learned the next day it was SCHEDULED to be 47 hours). We split the tickets with the intention of switching half way through the trip so everyone had a chance to rest in “luxury.”

The next two days were long; the first 24 hours on the train yielded little as far as scenery as worked from Shanghai north towards Xian before heading west towards Lhasa. In order to pass the time I buried myself in books (finishing two books on the trip to Lhasa). At lunch time on day 1 I made my way to the dining car to find that unlike the last train there were four cooks working hard in the kitchen making some simple but good Chinese dishes to order, I looked at the menu that had been carefully translated into English and was pleased to see they had a classic dish called “I wear the chicken pieces,” I looked the waiter with a smile pointed and said “我要这个” (I want this). Day one passed slowly and painfully, the lack of sleep and probably the time spent in the bars in Shanghai started to take a toll on me as I could feel myself developing a nasty cold. After a long day of reading and watching industrial China pass by my window I went to sleep.
Night two on the train was rough due to sickness and the increasing altitude (we reached 15,700 feet above sea level) while waking up throughout the night with shortness of breath. When the sun finally began to rise I was greeted by the sights of the Tibetan Plateau. The land out there is truly amazing where mountains shoot straight up from the grass lands and plains that are the home to yak, sheep, goat, antelope and farmers. We were working our way into the Himalayas the massive mountain range that’s covers 1/10 of the earth’s surface. The mountains themselves however were varied from rocky cliff faces to rolling green hills the variety kept me glued to a window and helped make the time pass a little bit faster. However, when it came time to use the bathroom I was reminded that we had been on a train for around 40 hours and people were beginning to suffer from altitude sickness and what I have now termed “the Beijing belly.” In the morning the staff did some minor bathroom cleaning but by noon I would have preferred a hole in the ground.
Around noon we worked our way to the dining cart to find that the train had essentially run out of food. Our waiter explained to us that all they had left was rice, eggplant and cabbage that they would be more than happy to make into a tasty melody I decided to pass and hope we would stop again soon somewhere I could get some instant noodles. In the meantime I looked at the snack options available on the train much to my delight outside of the usual assortment of animal parts the train had full cucumbers to offer. Over my time in China I’ve watched people eat cucumbers much the same way we would eat apples, I always thought it was a little odd but desperate times call for desperate measures and it was time to get Chinese and eat a couple cucumbers for lunch, 5 RMB later I’m eating a couple cucumbers on the Tibetan Plateau. After lunch I was starting to get a bit of a headache and contacted the train staff to get a mask to connect to the oxygen supply in my car, one of the necessities of traveling at that altitude is an oxygen supply.

It started to become apparent that we were running behind schedule and none of us were pleased that our 47 hour train ride now without food was going to be longer than it needed to be. We waited as our train approached the last stop before Lhasa for it to give us a clue as to how far behind schedule we really were and also hoping for some instant noodles or some sort of food to sustain us for the remainder of the trip, we watched the minutes tick by until we learned that we were more than 3 hours behind schedule. When we finally pulled into the station with stomachs grumbling we were disappointed, no noodles, no animal parts, no food to load for dinning cart, we got NOTHING! The train station itself appeared to be the only thing in a 100 mile radius (not counting tents).
Farther and farther we continued and continued to be impressed by the landscape as well as the blue skies that were more brilliant than any of us had ever seen before. At 10:10 PM 50 hours and 20 minutes after leaving Shanghai we were in Lhasa. In order to enter Tibet foreigners are required to get an additional visa (in addition to the Chinese visa) while there is no formal process for checking these visas on arrival we were immediately approached as the only foreigners on the train to view our paperwork. After a few minutes of looking at the papers and looking at us we were allowed to leave the station and start looking for our guide.

Tenzing (named after the first Sherpa to successfully climb Mt. Everest) met us outside the train station where he presented us with a traditional white Khata scarf. The scarf is believed (in Tibetan Buddhism) as a way to bestow a blessing upon a person they are also used as an offering to Buddha. Tenzing brought us to our hotel and told us he’d meet us in the lobby the next morning. Before I went to bed I looked out my window and saw the Potala Palace.