Since we are foreigners, we needed to make sure we had all the right paper work and travel permits ready for Tibet. We got a letter chopped (official stamp from work/organization/entity, it’s a China thing) by USAP, copies of passports and visas and paid the fees. Everything was done, bags were packed, winter jackets were purchased, personal luggage was stored at a friend’s apartment, goodbyes to Expo, USAP and Haibao 海宝 were said and we made our way to the Shanghai Railway station for our 2 day train ride from Shanghai to Lhasa.
Well, we made it to the train station on time alright, even with time to spare. We grabbed some dinner at KFC and seeing how we still had time, took a bathroom break before boarding. As I exit the bathroom, I see that everyone in the waiting lounge had disappeared. Make a quick phone call to find Jing and all she says is, “RUN!” I run to the ticket checker and when he sees “Lhasa” on my ticket, yells to someone, “LHASA! SOMEONE FOR LHASA!” to which I see another woman look out from the door and and yells at me to, “RUN!” I see David (another USAPer we were traveling with) at the top of the stairs with my suitcase and we run down as fast as we can. Jing is up ahead but being refused entry onto the train car because the guy decides, “Your ticket is for car #1, you still have time to make it.” The problem with this?
We were currently standing at the end, at car #13.
The entire platform was devoid of people.
We had about 2 minutes before the train left.
Trains in China leave right. on. the. dot.
CRRAAAAPPP!
We sprint with our luggage. The whistle signals one minute to take off. The train-door-operators step off the train and turn to face the train, meaning the doors were about to automatically close. No one seems to want to help the three people making a mad dash across the empty train platform in the middle of the night. Finally, I see someone motioning to enter the train so we quickly show our tickets and climb aboard. I was the last one on and the doors closed behind me; within 10 seconds, the train moves and starts making its way to Tibet.
We had made it.
We were in car #7, but we had made it. Catching out breaths and dragging our bags, we make it to our sleeper compartments in car #1. I call (and paid extra for) bottom bunk and as we are settling in, someone comes to check everyone’s IDs. In China, it’s required by law that you carry your Chinese National ID card, or shēn fèn zhèng 身份证. I hand him my US passport and seeing I’m a foreigner, ask to see my permit for entering Tibet. He told us where the bathroom and the hot water dispenser was (very important) and that lights out was at 10pm. The lights certainly did turn off at 10pm and since we didn’t have any individual lights, we just tucked ourselves in and went to sleep.
Now there’s not much to do on a long distance train besides sit and look out the window, read/write and talk to your neighbors on the train. I woke up to the loud conversations of a group of retired Shanghainese. There was also a Swedish father and his daughter who I gave some Tylenol to to help alleviate headaches. The first guy we shared our compartment with was on his way to Qinghai. The next old lady we shared with was on her way to Lhasa to visit her son. We Americans wrote or sketched in our journals, read our books, chatted, took our altitude sickness medicine and ate our duffel bag of snacks. Out the window we saw the Chinese country side zoom by and I realized that outside of my Shanghai bubble, the lives of the Chinese were drastically different from the lives of the Chinese in the big city. We made pit stops in several cities but had to remember to be back on the train before it departed.
We woke up one morning freezing cold because of the snow (!) and found out that due to some technical difficulties, it was a decision between running the heat or pumping extra oxygen into car #1. Apparently they chose oxygen over heat, so we all layered up a little more, held our hot water bottles closer to our bodies and enjoyed the snow scenery outside.The hours passed and the instant noodles were consumed and pretty soon, we disembarked onto Tibetan soil.
Our tour guide, Lamu, welcomed us with the traditional Tibetan hada, a long piece of silk used as a greeting gift. Similar to receiving the Hawaiian lei in Hawaii. We were dropped off at our hotel, told the morning pick up time, and were advised to not shower, bathe or wash our hairs for at least the first night as our bodies adjusted to the cold and high altitude. So yes, if you do the math, we went without showering for about 3 days.
In Lhasa, we visited Potala Palace bùdálāgōng 布达拉宫, Jokhang temple dàzhāosì 大昭寺 and Barkhore Street bākuòjiē 八廓街. Potala Palace had been on my list of “things to see” and it was great to finally be able to check it off the list. Devout Buddhist pilgrims spin prayer wheels and walk around and around the perimeter of the Palace. Lamu guided us with information, much of it quickly running together because all the people’s names sounded the same. The yak butter/wax burning in all the temple altars was pretty overwhelming and made my head heavy. I was doing okay with the high altitude, but had little to no appetite and near the end of the day, really had to lay down and rest.
Potala Palace bù dá lā gōng 布达拉宫
Jokhang temple dàzhāosì 大昭寺
Barkhore Street bākuòjiē 八廓街
The next day was an early start to a long car ride from Lhasa to Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet. We climbed even higher in elevation and made a stop at Yamdrok Lake, one of the three holy lakes of Tibet. Here, we paid 10 RMB to take photos with a yak and a Tibetan dog. At the time it seemed like a blatant attempt to hustle some money from tourists, but looking back, it was definitely money well spent. Yamdrok Lake was so cold, but so beautiful and there was a sense of peace that fell over you as you gazed at the snow capped mountains reflected in the blue waters.
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| Yamdrok Lake |
10 RMB photo ops
We arrived at Tashilhunpo Monastery zhāshílúnbùsì 扎什倫布寺, and did some more Buddhist templing. Due to the increase in altitude, my body started to fail me so by the time I got to our hotel my head was pounding. I got into bed and didn’t make it out to dinner so Jing brought me back some comfort food, tomato and eggs with rice.
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| Tashilhunpo Monastery zhāshílúnbùsì 扎什倫布寺 |
And our final day in Tibet was spent taking it easy with a stroll through the area near Potala Palace and some last minute shopping for gifts and trinkets. Interesting fact: many shopkeepers did not accept Chinese coins, but would accept Chinese paper currency. Reason? Because the coins do not have any Tibetan writing/language on them, but the paper currency does.
We even took the suggestion of our tour guide, Lamu, and went inside a butter tea “bar,” where Tibetans hang out and drink butter tea. I guess two ABC girls of Han Chinese descent and dressed in tourist gear, stick out like a sore thumb in butter tea bars because we got our fair share of stares and curious looks. For the first time, I felt like a lǎowài 老外 (foreigner) in China.
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| Tibetan butter tea bar - where everybody knows your name |
