Qinghai-Tibet Railway
It's no major obsession, but I do love trains, and one of the appeals to me for agreeing to go on this trip was that I was told we would be taking the new rail line, opened in 2006, despite the controversy, connecting Tibet with mainland China.It's the highest railroad in the world, reaching altitudes of 16,500 feet for prolonged periods over the Tibetan plateau, and a technological feat crossing permafrost that undergoes some thawing in warmer months, and will likely see further thawing in the future due to global warming. The train is specially equipped with oxygen stations for altitude sickness.
Among the criticisms of the railway is that China is using it to further force China's influence on Tibet, and increase the influx of ethnic Chinese into Tibet. I actually wonder what incentives the Chinese government is using to coerce Chinese people to go to Tibet. Tibet is a harsh environment and the thin air is not a matter of small concern. Tibet historically has been difficult to conquer because conquerors eventually realized they liked oxygen and would leave.
I actually think the Chinese offer economic incentives to poor Chinese to move there, which further aggravates the situation in Tibet because then it is intentional to leave Tibetans out of any economic progress. I also think the Chinese criminal system gives petty criminals the choice of going to jail for 20 years for some small offense, or move to Tibet where they'll be given money to start something up. But I have no documentation for that, it just seems like something the Chinese government would do.
The train ride from Lhasa to our destination in Qinghai Province, also considered western China, took about 25 hours. It could be considered some boring going to some people, but I enjoy watching scenery go by. It never gets old. As long as I have my iPod.
I did take a lot of pictures from the train. In the daylight hours we had, I shot about a third of all the shots I took in Tibet with my digital point-and-shoot camera on the train. On this package tour, we stopped in 4 identifiable cities and otherwise were on the road between them. But the expanse of Tibet is much larger, and the train took us out through much of this expanse.
My idea was to shoot as much life in this expanse of countryside as possible. From a moving train, it meant a lot of quick, spontaneous spotting of something to shoot, then while the camera was turning on, pushing the optical zoom to its furthest at the same time, and then tracking a shot while it moved by at the same perceived speed as the train was going. The results were surprisingly sharp, even with my Canon's anti-shake, for a zoom lens from a moving train.
But yea, 25 hours is a long time on the train. Once the sun goes down, there's not much of anything to do. Our tickets were for berths – 4 to a room – and they were pretty cramped. The Chinese food in the dining car was surprisingly good. I didn't expect train food to be any good, and given the confined conditions the cooks had to deal with, they turned out some pretty tasty dishes.
After it was dark, most people tried to sleep. I sat in the hallway outside the berths reading while recharging my iPod shuffle since that was the only place with electrical outlets.
