stepho&crank

Our brief but incredible trip to Lhasa ended early in the morning as we stumbled to the city’s shiny new train station. China has put billions into making Tibet more accessible and the embodiment of its conquest-by-infrastructure is the recently completed Qinghai Tibet Train.

The train runs about 2,400 miles from Lhasa to Beijing. The tracks span permafrost and huge gorges and tunnel through countless mountains. At its highest, the train hurdles over the Tanggula Pass at 16,640 feet at 75 miles per hour.

Steph and I shared a four-bunk “soft-sleeper” car with two other travelers. We spent the 48-hour ride reading (I knocked off a couple of hundred pages of Shantaram), listening to episodes of “This of American Life,” and thinking about how hungry we were but remembering how bad the food in the dining car was.

All that said, we highly recommend traveling by rail. The bunks were comfortable, the views amazing and the price reasonable. Just bring a good book and some snacks.

Pictures of the ride and inside of the train are after the jump.