The crush of people in the waiting room is intense as the sign for the T27 to Lhasa changes to ‘boarding’. I’m sitting in one of the many waiting halls at Beijing West Train station, the starting point for the 3day train ride that will take me across China to the province of Tibet.

The station itself is grand and oversized for what it is. Inside the main corridor is littered with food sellers, book shops and the inevitable KFC and McDonalds. The marble floor and huge interior space remind me of the images of Grand Central station in the US, only in those images there weren’t clearly poor Chinese people sleeping against the walls guarding what must be every possession they own.

Legs straddling my bag calmly surveying the situation, hundreds of Chinese push and shove each other, carrying everything from clothes to a full set of tyres for what must be quite a big 4×4 towards the T27 boarding doors. I decide to let them fight it out and wait for the rush to subside, it turns out to be the right thing to do, within five minutes the crowd is gone and I stroll past the ticket check, no pushing, no fighting.

The Train

Even for me this is tight.

The train is what is known in china as ‘modern’, in the west we’d call it a commuter train. There are 20 carriages all up, most are hard seats (or seats as we’d call them) and then six carriages of hard and soft sleepers (hard being a plank with some material soft being a comfy foam mattress).

I’m sharing a hard sleeper cabin with five other people, I’ve paid 780yuan for the privilege (about $140AU). In a stroke of luck I get one of the middle bunks, which are shielded from the lights and air-con that run continuously, the downside is that I’ll have to sleep with my bags as there’s nowhere for them except on the hard plank that is my bed.

Settling in the older lady in the bunk below me begins to snore, we’ve been travelling for 30mins thank god I brought earplugs.

The lights of Beijing fade on the horizon, I finish up dinner, a chocolate bar and bottle of water. The lights of the cabin dim and It’s time to turn in and get some sleep. Three hours down 46 to go.

Morning 1

One of the old ladies in the bottom bunks laughs loudly, I jerk awake sitting bolt upright and smashing my head on the bunk above. Even me, the shorty that I am, find the bunk strangely small. My legs are bent and my feet hang over the edge, I would hate to be any taller. Even with this slightly uncomfortable sleeping arrangement I’ve managed a good 7 hours. Looking out the window it’s clear we’ve covered some ground .The landscape outside is very hilly and the scrolling sign indicates we’re at 2200m above sea level.

As my watch beeps 8:15am, the train is pulling into its first stop. The old ladies grab their bags and climb off, they’re part of a group and I’m thankful thinking I’ll have a free cabin for the rest of the journey, I was wrong. An even older gentleman climbs into the bottom bunk. Later that night I discover he snores even worse than the old lady.

First Meal

"Hot & Spicy"

Pot noodles will be my diet for the next three days, I don’t read Chinese so I add hot water, the three sachets included and start eating. It takes me 5 big mouthfuls before the chillies and spices kick in, apparently in the Beijing supermarket  I had grabbed the ‘hot & spicy’ variety. With no other option down the hatch they go. After consulting my phrase book I work out the third satchel is the hot bit, I’ll leave that out next time.

The View

Out the window the landscape is slowly changing. As we journey further from the capital the buildings are getting cruder the people clearly not as well off as the middleclass Beijing residents. We pass a village where small children are playing next to the track, their parents several meters away manually ploughing a field, and I mean manually, two of them are pulling the plough as the other guides it through the earth.

Just before sunset we stop at the second station. I buy some gum, and am glad to get off again away from the smoke. 10minutes later we’re on the move.

Sleepless Night

It’s 4am, 2degrees and the train has stopped at Xining, I’m woken by the sudden influx of people onto the train. It doesn’t take long for the journey to resume and the hustle of people to disappear as they settle in for a few hours sleep.

Broken by the stop in the night, where I got a bit of fresh air, the second sleep is not as good as the first. Sir snores-a-lot in the bunk below as well as a lack of oxygen and the Chinese passengers instance that chain smoking at 5000m is a good idea put me in a bad mood. I’m soon a little happier as  I look out the window, We’ve made it up in the mountains now out the window is fields of permafrost and snow covering the ground.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes the view is more grand than every story book, national geographic and encyclopaedia image of the Himalayas I’ve ever seen. A cold shiver runs up my spine as I realise in four days I’ll be riding through those same peaks, thankful I packed a -1oC sleeping bag and liner.

The second morning of pot noodles and chocolate bars is just as bland as the first, only 12 more hours till Lhasa. regardless of the lack of oxygen, and general disregard for basic decency, the Chinese passengers continue to smoke for the entire 12 hours, my head has started to pound the first signs of Altitude Sickness. To only escape the smoke, I take some neurofen and spend 30min eating a meal of Egg and Tomato in the dinning car. It cost 25yaun but I couldn’t face another meal of pot noodles or eating it surrounded by chain smoking Chinese.

With Lhasa in site the carriage irrupts into a recreation of the waiting hall back in Beijing. Luggage children and spare tyres are pushed foward to wards the exits as if they’re going to expect us to jump off the moving train as it enter the station. I sit on my bunk and wait.

Arriving at Lhasa Train station the train empties and I follow the last people off. I’m glad the trip is over, but I’d do it again. Experiencing the highest railway in the world is something I’m glad I had the opportunity to do, although I would have loved it more if there was a NO Smoking carriage.

But for now I’ve arrived in Tibet.

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