Train to Lhasa
July 4th, 2006 | Published in travel | 7 Comments
The recent completion of the infamous Golmud-Lhasa line, home to some of the most treacherous terrain in the world, really does open up some travel options. Instead of taking the 48 hour bus journey from Golmud, Qinghai, getting to Tibet is now a breeze.. as far as trains go anyway. The interiors of the train, whose “1,200 miles of tracks traverse 342 miles of permafrost, much of it at altitudes exceeding 13,000 feet” (citing Wired), look very nice.
Guess where I’m planning to go this December? (Plotting to put my family on the train to Tibet.) This is the moment every trainiac has been waiting for, a historical moment (I know, Save Tibet and all that, even though I’m a member of those oppressive Han Chinese). Anticipating an increase in tourist numbers, there is news that the Potala Palace will impose a limit on its number of vistors so as to not place too much strain on the site.
Chairman Mao said he couldn’t sleep until it was completed. I hope he’s sleeping well now in his grave.
Dec 2006: Reclaiming Chineseness.
July 4th, 2006 at 10:12 pm (#)
I thought you were going to be in India again?
July 4th, 2006 at 11:46 pm (#)
surely hope the train will STAY that nice. But not that you’d mind, of course. :)
July 5th, 2006 at 10:58 pm (#)
Me and my roommate were discussing the same article(wired) sometime back. He was of the opinion that this whole train thing was just about making more money.
And how this would probably erode the traditional culture in Tibet and so on…the way it’s happening in the big cities in India.
July 6th, 2006 at 1:52 am (#)
I was looking forward to it when I first heard of it coupla years back. Now I still am looking forward to it (after planned revisits back to mongolia first) yet this whole railway project only means that china has succeeded finally, in furthering their chinisfication of the region not even theirs to begin with in the first place. hrrmph.
July 10th, 2006 at 7:38 am (#)
China’s Slow Train Coming — Beijing To Lhasa…
To quote Bob Dylan, there’s a slow train coming. It’s called the Beijing-Lhasa express and it seems just about everybody has an opinion on it. Newsweek’s Melinda Liu is doing a video blog of her trip on the newly completed…
July 10th, 2006 at 10:15 am (#)
My mom is going on a trip on this train in Oct. Hope she takes more pics and I probably post it up on my blog.
August 14th, 2006 at 12:11 pm (#)
The train to lhasa aka qinghai tibet train finally has an official website with all the fares schedules pictures etc.
http://www.ChinaTibetTrain.com
Cheers.