Features

Straight To China's Shangri-La

31 May 2007 by business traveller

Brent Hannon flies a captivating report on a 52-hour train journey from Shanghai to Lhasa filled with magnificent scenery and some interesting onboard service, and tells why stocking up on provisions is a must.

For the most part, passenger trains in China are far from comfortable. The stations, trains and carriages are crowded and dirty, and the ticket lines can be a nightmare. That’s how I remembered them, anyway. So my impending trip on the brand-new Shanghai-to-Lhasa direct train, a 52-hour journey, filled me with anxiety. Then, upon arrival at the Shanghai railway station, I was swarmed by touts, beggars and other assorted riffraff, and my blood pressure began to rise.

So imagine my surprise when I boarded the train and peered cautiously into the soft sleeper berth. It was clean and cosy, with wall-to-wall picture windows, plus a TV, headphones, electrical outlets, thermos, fresh bedding, thermostat and an oxygen switch. Nor was it crowded: my friend Richard and I had the four-bed berth entirely to ourselves. And what’s this? Another surprise, as a polite, uniformed attendant appeared at our door. “Hot water is available at the front of the car, the dining car opens at 6pm and please, no smoking in the cabins,” she said in Chinese. Then she gave each of us a form to sign: it guaranteed that we could survive at an altitude above 3,000m. I had no idea what to expect at that altitude, but I signed anyway.

So at 4.11pm, right on time, we pulled out of Shanghai station, bound for Lhasa, 4,373km away across the entire length of China. In the dining car that night, as we rolled through the inky blackness, the four-star treatment continued. Dinner was rice with xia ren (stir-fried shrimp), crab roe tofu, green vegetable and chicken, washed down with a few bottles of beer, all for just CNY160 (US$21). The mood in the dining car was jovial, as the kitchen staff and security guards held an impromptu party in the first few rows, while the Lhasa Express chuffed along smoothly. Life was good.  

That night, I made another pleasant discovery: the bathrooms were heated. You have no idea how much that can mean at 4am in the middle of winter. The next morning, under a thick cloud of coal dust, we watched the ancient ramparts and city walls of Xian glide by while sipping hot coffee. This was the Yellow River valley, the legendary birthplace of the Chinese race.

Later I left the cabin to do some exploring. Every carriage had two toilets: one squat and the other, Western-style. They reminded me of Chiang Kai-shek and his elegant wife. Word has it that he liked his squat toilet, and she liked hers Western-style, and so, side-by-side they sat, discussing matters of state. Every carriage had three sinks, all with hot water and soap, and boiling water was available all day for coffee, tea and noodles. Every carriage had an altimeter; we were at 490m and climbing.

The hard sleeper berths were like our soft sleepers, but with six smaller bunks instead of four large ones. They were more crowded, with a mix of Chinese and Western passengers, plus a few Tibetan Buddhists in red robes. At the back of the train were the hard seats, but again, these were not the foul rag-and-bone shops I remembered – they were clean enough, and more spacious than those found in ordinary trains, with 98 seats, compared with the usual 108 seats. The dining car separated the hard and soft sleeper areas from the hard seats for security.

Lunch was cabbage and pork soup, stir-fried vegetable and tomato and egg omelette with black tea. It was not as good as dinner the previous night, and the service was a bit slovenly. By early afternoon, we had rolled all the way to Lanzhou, at an elevation of 1,490m. This was the Loess Plateau, a land of terraced brown hills and earthen caves, wind-blown and sparsely populated. The empty brown hills had a hard, desolate beauty, and the landscape was a welcome change from grimy industrial lowlands. 

And so the day went by: I read my book Death of a Red Heroine, one of the Inspector Chen detective novels, a Shanghai murder mystery that the poetry-quoting detective eventually solved (of course). We had brought instant coffee, salami, crackers, parmesan cheese and a bag of White Rabbit candies, which we grazed on, supplemented by fresh oranges that we bought at one of the stations. The coffee was a godsend and word travelled fast: before long, several Kiwis, two Australians and a Swiss couple had dropped by for coffee. That was the pattern all afternoon: reading, snacking, sightseeing, napping, and chatting with the other riders.

By 6pm, as we rolled into Xining, we had gained another thousand metres. All the direct Lhasa-bound trains – from Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Beijing and Shanghai – pass through the Xining station.

Dinner on the second night was the low point of the journey. The staff had taken over the dining car and they were lounging in the best seats, shouting at the top of their lungs, and smoking up a storm. They served us lukewarm rice and cold vegetables, which we had to send back. All the dishes were oily, and the motion of the train caused the puddles of oil to jiggle and vibrate in the bowls. Meanwhile, dish after steaming hot dish emerged from the kitchen, which the entire train staff – cooks, attendants, and security guards – set upon ravenously. It was quite a scene.

Later that night, from the comfort of our berth, we witnessed the most magnificent scenery. A three-quarter moon illuminated the icy landscape, a barren land with no houses, no roads, no farms and no fields. Up ahead, the train headlight probed the wintery darkness, as we began the long climb onto the roof of the world. After a midnight stop in Golmud, where we switched locomotives, we finally eased onto the Tibetan plateau.

By 8.45am the following day, we were at 4,600m. It was dark outside, but the horizon was layered in vibrant shades of orange and yellow, and the sky was a deep blue-black, like the view from an airplane window. When the sparkling sun finally rose over the Qinghai Plateau, it lighted up the vast plains of Central Asia, a rugged land of icy rivers, brown grass, huge rolling hills, and snowcapped peaks, all frozen solid under the chilly winter sun. These were the fabled Kunlun mountains, famous among the Chinese for their utter desolation.

From our soft sleeper, we could see buses grinding along the Lhasa-Golmud highway, a rough 48-hour trip that is popular among backpackers. But I was deep in my comfort zone and would not have switched places with one of those backpackers for all the tea in China. Blue trucks plied the dusty road, travelling in long lines under the bright blue sky.

Our fellow travellers dropped by one by one, Swiss, Kiwi and Australian. “Did you see the sunrise?” they asked. Sure, any time a sunrise waits until 9am, I’ll be there to watch it. But what they really wanted was coffee, which we happily shared. This was the last day, after all.

Later, the room attendant came in with a “Nasal Oxygen Cannula” and showed us how to plug it into the oxygen outlet. The directions were confusing: “The product is only used once. After using the product, it will be destroyed at all and must take not of free, circulation of the product during operation.”

Undaunted, I shoved the plastic tubes up my nose. Fresh sweet oxygen flowed into my lungs; at least, I think that’s what it was. Beyond setting the stage for a few silly photos, the oxygen didn’t seem to do much. At the same time, oxygen oozed into the cabin from a couple of vents, but contrary to rumour, the cabins were not pressurised. By now the train was approaching 5,000m; an airplane cabin, by comparison, is pressurised to 2,500m. Some fellow passengers reported feeling light-headed, but overall, the altitude wasn’t a problem.

By noon, the train had slowed to a crawl as it passed through the Tuotuo River region, source of the Yangtze, and climbed toward the 5,072-metre Tanggula pass, the highest set of train tracks on the planet. Deep snow and ice covered the northern exposures and deeper valleys. The thin air, the wide-open terrain, the yaks, the Tibetans and the tall mountains created a hypnotic display, and with the slow speed of the train, the ultra-blue skies, and the oohs and aahs of our fellow passengers, it felt like we had entered another world.

Before long, the train eased over Tanggula pass and rolled into Tibet. We continued across the Roof of the World, picking up speed on the downhill run to Lhasa. Meanwhile, back in the dining car, lunch was a meagre set menu of cabbage soup and white rice. Yes, the staff had eaten up all the food and, indeed, they looked considerably fatter after two days of feasting. For the rest of the day, we made do with our leftover stash of fruit and titbits.

As the afternoon wore on, I met a few Chinese-speaking Tibetans who had sold jade gemstones in Beijing, travelled south to the holy island of Putuo Shan near Shanghai and were on their way back to Lhasa, and I also chatted with some Chinese businessmen.

One by one, we rolled through the high mountain stations – Anduo, Lake Cuona, Naqu – but the train went straight through, without stopping. That was frustrating, because we wanted to step out into mountain sunshine, feel the cutting wind and the cold air, and smell the ever-present yaks. The stations did have cell phone reception, though, and I was able to send and receive some text messages.

One of the highlights of the downhill run was Lake Cuona, a huge frozen lake that glittered like a giant white diamond. Even the ripples were frozen, by a cold snap so strong and sudden that it froze the very waves. After more dramatic scenery, illuminated by the afternoon sun, the train pulled into Lhasa punctually at 7.50pm.

We exited the station and walked into the cold dark air of Lhasa, and then turned to look: yes, the Lhasa station was a replica of the Potala Palace, as advertised. But we didn’t look long; it was cold, and besides, the real Potala Palace was just a few kilometres away.

FACT FILE

PERMITS AND PRICES

Individuals can enter Tibet. It is not necessary to book a group tour. A Tibet travel permit is required, which takes about a week to obtain. My permit, bought in Shanghai, cost CNY1,000 (US$130). A second permit is required to travel outside of Lhasa; most people pick these up in Lhasa, although they can be arranged in advance. Permits can be bought from a travel agent or an official Tibet Tourism Bureau office.

A one-way soft sleeper ticket (four berths in a private room) from Shanghai to Lhasa was CNY1,450 (US$188), and the plane trip back, stopping in Xian, was CNY2,100 (US$272). A one-way hard sleeper ticket (six berths in a semi private room) is CNY900 (US$117). Return train tickets must be purchased in Lhasa.

For more information, log on to www.chinatibettrain.com

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