Fellow passengers on the worlds highest railway...

When entering the waiting room for the skytrain, we appear to be the only Western people which results into a Brangelina effect...all heads turn in our direction, people laugh, whisper and/or tap on the shoulders' of the few that have not spotted us yet. The ones with cameras take pictures, some shout "hello" and then quickly turn their heads or duck when you say hello or nihao back, little children stare and hide their faces behind their mams shoulder when you wave... Pooh, do not envy Angelina...

When the train arrives, the crowd (mostly Tibetan) loaded with unidentified enormous pieces of luggage, children and food (have not seen any live stock...got spared until India, I guess) pushes itself in the train...fortunately all into the hardseat section. No wonder that the Lonely Planet strongly discourages you to settle for a hardseat ticket.

Sharing a (6 bunkbed hardsleeper) cabin with Chinese is also a new experience. Stocked with loads and loads of noodles, dried fruit, sausages, bread, cakes, tealeaves and sunflower seeds they board the train. Hmm, is it also possible to survive this 26 hour train ride on 5 cups of cup-a-soup, 1 bread from the market, 3 bottles of water and two bottles of coke?? Luckily, there is also Choco Pie for the traditional train breakfast. As of departure at 3pm the Chinese manage to eat and chat continously until it is time for bed. At 7am they get up to get hot water for their noodles again.... Thank god for earplugs and a cold. The slurping, smacking, spitting and coughing drowns out the cheesy music (imagine a slow version of "rivers of babylon" in repeat mode) that blares out of the speakers of the train.

Fealing a bit weak due to lack of oxygen, hungry because of watching the delicious treats of the Chinese food (cup-a-soup did not do the trick) and in the mood for a beer, try to make our way to the dining car....tough! Part of our staring friends from earlier that day, crammed in the hardseat section, contnue to stare, the others sleep on the floor in the restroom (so unbelievably disgusting), in between trains and in the hallway. You must focus not to accidently crush a face - hmm, maybe just keep it to one beer as we also must go back this way.

Understandably (you do not want this crowd in your dining car), the food is ridiculously expensive. No wonder everyone brought so much. After some tough negotiations (in broken English, the train attendants get a crash course), we can get half of the set meal for half of the price...they nicely bring us their favourite 3 out of the 6...a delicious fish, but full of tiny bones, some pieces of chicken floating in grease and lumbs of fat in a brown sauce...Apparently the word beans and cabbage (two of the other dishes we asked for) were not part of the crash course.

After a tough way back to the cabin, made it to bed...next day the circus started all over again!























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Location:Xining, China -> Lhasa, Tibet