The highest mountain railway. Train Beijing - Lhasa

Qinghai-Tibet Railway(The Qinghai–Tibet railway) the highest mountain railway in the world, connecting the city of Xining, the capital of Qinghai province, and through it the whole of Mainland China, with administrative center Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) - a city.

1. Actually, the train itself. (Photo taken January 2008):

The first half of the first day on the road, in general, does not present anything interesting: the endless steppes of Inner Mongolia, wide Chinese rivers, the web of the Chinese railway.

2. Second day of the journey. Tunnel:

3. This is what the city of Xining looks like from the train:

4. This lake is called Kukunor in Russian and Mongolian, in Tibetan - Tso Ngonpo, in Chinese - Qinghai:

5. Small Buddhist monastery in Eastern Tibet (Amdo region):

The road builders had to face many technical difficulties. First of all, these are areas of permafrost (permafrost zone). Approximately half of the Golmud-Lhasa section is built on cryolithozones. In summer, the top layer of soil melts and the ground turns into liquid mud. To solve this problem, some areas had to be filled with large amounts of stones and rubble, and the most vulnerable areas had to be raised onto bridges.

6. Engineering structures along the road:

7. Here it is, the highest mountain section of the railway in the world, Tang La Pass, height - 5072 m:

8. Martian landscapes of the Tibetan Plateau:

9. Tibetan high mountain village. There are many of these along the way:

Construction of the Golmud–Lhasa section was completed in October 2005, and the first train was launched in July 2006. Construction of the road continues: in 2013, the opening of the Lhasa - Shigatse section was announced, the project is estimated at 13.3 billion yuan (approx. 2.2 billion dollars). Plans for the construction of sections Lhasa - Nyingchi (a district in Western Tibet), Lhasa - Kathmandu, and even Lhasa - Calcutta are being discussed.

10. Building bridges and good roads in Tibet is not an easy task:

11. This is what our train looks like from the outside:

12. Lake Hang Tso:

13. Samdan Kangsam mountain range, the highest point of the ridge - 6590 m:

14. In some places, Tibetan landscapes resemble the Arctic:

15. A few more Martian landscapes:

16. Tibetan Plateau:

17. Passengers:

18. Railway station in Lhasa.

The idea of ​​visiting Tibet had been exciting my imagination for a long time, and the decisive reason for the implementation of the idea was the opportunity to travel along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. Each of the huge army of railway workers sometimes becomes a consumer of the services of their native transport, so it was interesting to look at the overseas miracle - the highest mountain railway in the world.

Even before departure, we were sent electronic travel documents: a small (the size of a cigarette pack) pink ticket, from which it was possible (most of the text was typed in Chinese) to understand only the date, time, train number, carriage, seat, departure station and arrival and its cost. You could identify your ticket by the passport number indicated at the bottom left. The tickets themselves should have been given to us upon arrival, but more on that later.
So, suitcase, airport, plane and transfer to Train Station Beijing (there are five in total, four of which are named after parts of the world - southern, northern, eastern and western). Beijing Station is located in the center of the capital, and the huge station square greeted us not just with the usual bustle of a station, but with a crowd of people through which we squeezed, following the movements of the guide.

He ordered us to give him our passports and went with them to a small pavilion located in front of the station building itself. At the ticket window he stamped the original tickets and returned them to us along with our passports. He told us to hold them tightly in our hands and not lose them. Then, in the crowd of the same passengers, we went through the turntable, presenting our passport with ticket to the controller. Almost immediately we find ourselves in the open doors of the station, which can only be entered through luggage screening, as at any airport. We put things on the belt, hand luggage goes there too - praise common sense, there is no need to take off your shoes and jackets. They check the ticket again, and now we are in the holy of holies - at the station itself! Here it should be explained that without a ticket it is not only impossible to travel, but also to go to the station; the check is quite serious! The transport security system in force in China implies that only the “target audience” – passengers – will be on the railway territory. You arrive and leave, or you are waiting for your train, and the rest of the people at the station have nothing to do - they won’t let anyone through. Indeed, strict inspectors keep a watchful eye on documents. The guide has a special ticket for the person seeing you off. For reference, the station can accommodate 8,000 people at a time, and its architecture has both traditional and modern styles.
Then the next attraction begins - you need to find on the board (not all information has English interlinear) the number of your train, next to which the number of... the waiting room will be indicated. Our hall was on the first floor and it turned out to be overcrowded, there was no question of sitting down, in fact, getting up with things among the passengers was problematic. The guide grouped us near him and told us to follow him. The large hall with a high ceiling literally enveloped us in noise and din, not to mention that the announcements were useless to our ears. After half an hour of standing, squeezed among our own and other people’s suitcases, we felt the following shock - everyone who had been sitting and lying there before got up from their seats and from the floor. This movement signaled the beginning of passage to the boarding platform. And here again - the controller and the turntable, squeezing through which we find ourselves in the passage and run after the whole crowd, then down the stairs, passing through the tunnel, climbing up the stairs - and we are at the goal - here is our train. We find our carriage, the conductor checks our passports with tickets, and we go into the carriage.


Then it turns out that one of us has a ticket in another compartment, and a Chinese grandfather is traveling with us in the top bunk. Our guide is negotiating with him about the possibility of an exchange. The cunning grandfather bargains for the bottom bunk, otherwise he does not agree to leave our compartment. And at the same time he pretends that he doesn’t know that the cost of the lower and upper shelves is different. Well, old age must be respected, and we thank grandfather for his kindness.
The compartment itself on the Chinese train turned out to be similar to ours, the only downside was the lack of a locker for luggage. The lower shelves did not rise, had free space, but at the same time the height from the floor hardly allowed an average suitcase to be squeezed in there. We barely had time to place our luggage before the train started moving, that is, the entire boarding procedure took place within 20-25 minutes after starting from the waiting room. This is where the Chinese have such a pace, with whom we could barely keep up.
Having come to our senses after such an ordeal, we examine the compartment and find a large thermos. Soon the conductor comes and takes our paper tickets (with magnetic stripe) and gives us plastic cards in exchange. The formalities are completed, and we can study the carriage, mastering the territory of daily travel.

Here is a new discovery: unlike our trains, the compartment car has not our 9 standard compartments, but 8. The freed-up space has three sinks, which is very convenient and solves the problem of an always busy toilet on the way. By the way, the toilets located on the working and non-working vestibules are different - one with a high toilet (European type), and the other with a floor-mounted one, or “Genoa bowl” (Asian type).

The most amazing thing was the wide vestibules and passages from car to car, unlike our narrow and uncomfortable ones. On the non-working side, in addition to the toilet, there are also three sinks.

There is also a conductor's room and a luggage storage room. On the working side of the carriage there was also a small compartment for the conductor and a boiler in which we filled a thermos with hot water. Along the route, a cart periodically passed by offering packaged fruits and hot food from the dining car.

The stop where we had to get off was not the final one, and we were worried about not getting through, and in vain. The conductor returned our paper tickets half an hour before arrival, taking away the plastic cards. We were not met at the carriage, and we, warned about this, went down from the platform. There is a ticket check again and a guide meeting us, from whom we asked what would happen if you did not present your ticket at the exit. The answer was short - you will pay the fare plus a fine.

A few days later we had a longer journey by rail ahead of us: we had to travel from the city of Chengdu to Lhasa (the capital of Tibet) along that same famous high-mountain road. Travel time is 48 hours.
The stress began already on the station square, which was packed with people, as during a demonstration. The local guide gave us tickets, permits (special permits to visit Tibet), and wished us a safe journey. Of course, we already had Beijing experience, but there we were led by a guide, and we expected that here too they would take us to the carriage and seat us, making sure that the Russian tourists had departed safely. The girl did not speak Russian, but chattered in English, and although her speech was quite intelligible, her stupor did not allow her to immediately assess the situation. We began to worry, asking her over and over again how to find our train. Of course, we managed, and it even became a kind of adventure. Here everything was according to the already well-known Beijing scenario - luggage scanner, ticket check, information board, search for a waiting room. We had enough time before departure, and fortunately, we even managed to take free seats. In the depths of the waiting room there were peculiar gate passages with numbers, and next to it there was a board indicating through which gate the boarding would take place. We identified our gate, at the same time noticing a large group of Tibetans who were returning home, singing choral songs with joy.


People were already snaking towards the gates located next to ours; according to the time, their train was supposed to leave in 10 minutes, but no one was allowed in yet, and everyone was patiently waiting for “sim-sim, open.” After some thought, we decided that we were able to stand for half an hour, but be the first at the entrance, and moved closer to the Tibetans. We were launched twenty minutes before departure, and what a steeplechase it was!


Everything became clear later, the lovely Tibetans had tickets for a general carriage, perhaps without seats, and they were in a hurry to take the best of them in order to travel for 2 days in relative comfort. In general, as soon as we settled into the compartment, the train moved smoothly.
In addition to the above, this carriage surprised with LCD monitors at the foot of each berth. However, by the way, the screens did not come to life during the entire route, and there was water in the washbasin only in the first half of the day. The Chengdu-Lhasa train is an express train with a maximum speed of 140 km/h. Its distinctive feature is minimal amount stops, which can be objectively explained by the passenger load on the entire route from the starting station to the final station. The carriage is a soft sleeper, and if you have disposable slippers, there is no service in the form of towels and soap.
We, of course, read that the train along the road overcomes an altitude of 5000 m above sea level, but the questionnaires given to us were a little shocking. A small piece of paper was a kind of insurance receipt for the railway for each passenger, stating that his decision to travel by train to the area of ​​the high mountain plateau is voluntary and conscious, that your health is fine, and you understand that you are doing this at your own peril and risk .

Having signed such a verdict, we became quiet: in fact, we hoped that in this way acclimatization would be easier due to the gradual entry into the highlands of Tibet and its capital at an altitude of 3600 m above sea level.
The first day of the journey we simply slept, preparing ourselves for the altitude difference. At night I woke up with a headache, looked out the window and gasped - it was white, white, and when we left it was +25 degrees. Near the conductors' compartment there is a dashboard on which the altitude above sea level can be guessed. If only my head didn’t hurt – 4200!

It immediately becomes clear that we are in the Celestial Empire, and bare statistics confirm that almost 1000 km of the journey will take place at this altitude! In the evening we examined a certain box at the head of the room, which turned out to be an individual device for supplying oxygen. The air in Tibet is thin, and in order to assist passengers in the fight against the “miner”, oxygen is supplied to the carriages (centrally, through air conditioners). His arrival was noticeable even by ear - a sort of hissing. For those especially suffering, there are individual tubes that can be inserted directly into the nose. It’s a pity that the carriage didn’t have a clear schedule, and we couldn’t understand when we passed the highest point on the Qinghai-Tibet Road at 5200 m above sea level (Tangggula Pass), as well as the highest mountain tunnel in the world – the Fenghushan Tunnel ( at 4900 meters) with a length of 1338 meters.
The next morning greeted us with steppe views outside the window with sparse yellow-green vegetation. The road from Chengdu to Lhasa goes in a loop, initially it is a double track, then turns into a single track.


We are already driving through the permafrost territory, or permafrost zone, and this is what became the biggest problem during the construction of the road. To strengthen the railway track, the top layer of soil, “floating” in the summer, was covered with large amounts of stone and crushed stone, and many sections were simply raised onto bridges.


It was these bridges that accompanied us all the way; they look especially beautiful at the turns. Then I read on the Internet that during the construction of this road, Russian experience in permafrost conditions was used. Outside the windows, a deserted landscape and rare buildings float by, we wonder who lives in them and for what purpose they were even built here in the steppe.

There is always a solar battery installed next to lonely houses, which we unsuccessfully try to photograph. It turns out that the windows are tinted with a protective ultraviolet layer to protect them from the bright light of the sun. This fact does not allow us to take decent photographs, but there was plenty to photograph! The slopes of the railway tracks are covered with mesh or patterned stones. High bridge supports lift the train above the ground; first, hills grow along the track, and then mountains with snow-capped peaks appear. Tunnels appear, there are practically no stops, and it is impossible to determine what is overboard. There was a noticeable headache, but that didn’t stop us from having a bite to eat and jumping out into the street when the train finally stopped. This was the Na Qu station at an altitude of 4500 m, as evidenced by the platform sign. After this station, the views outside the window became stunning, and even enhanced by the emerging sun. Without looking up from the window, forgetting about the headache, we enjoyed the magnificent views of the mountains. Yaks and sheep appear, some birds hover above the ground, and a hare gallops across the steppe. In our carriage, besides us, there are three other Dutchmen, and we occupy the corridor windows, admiring the beauty. After some time, the Chinese also poured out of the compartment; they “watch the watchers,” that is, us, appreciating our enthusiasm with satisfaction. I take off my hat to the labor feat of the Chinese and am no longer surprised that during the construction of the railway, the animals whose traditional migration routes it crossed were not forgotten. To solve these environmental problems special passages for animals were arranged.
Right on schedule, we arrived at the terminus of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway - the capital of Tibet. autonomous region China, Lhasa city.


At the exit from the station there is a traditional ticket check, but not only that. You will not be allowed into the territory of Tibet without permits, they are strict about this here. The Lhasa station is architecturally designed in a typical Tibetan style, has 5 floors (as it is written on the Internet), but I immediately wondered why such a large building for a station with 6-7 pairs of trains, because in China stations are used strictly functionally, and after arrival trains, this station quickly empties until the next train.

Or maybe it was built with perspective? After all, the construction of the railway continues and soon from Lhasa tourists will be able to get not only to Shigatse, but also to the capital of Nepal (Kathmandu), as well as to Indian Calcutta.

Getting to Tibet is not as easy as it might seem. First you need to get permission. It is given exactly for the time for which you book the tour. You can’t just come to Tibet. Prices for tours are steep. We paid $1800 for 3 days for three people. This is for an individual guide, entry permit, train tickets and tickets to temples. All. A good hotel – at least another $150 per night per room. You are essentially paying for an entry permit and a guide.

How do the Chinese authorities explain why foreigners need permission to travel to Tibet? It’s very simple: “Tibet is a specific region of China.”

Therefore, the State Council of China (government) decided that

Based on folk traditions and cultural heritage;
. according to security requirements environment;
. based on traffic characteristics and reception capabilities of tourism infrastructure

Non-Chinese citizens must obtain permission to enter Tibet.

Like this! That is, the point is not at all that you can unfurl the banner “Freedom for Tibet!” and shouting “Dalai Lama for president!” Rather, the whole point is that foreigners are used to shitting everywhere. All the rivers and air of China have been polluted, all the entrances have already been pissed! Therefore, to Tibet - only with permission! This is the last clean piece of land.

By the way, foreign diplomats and journalists are not allowed to travel to Tibet as tourists. They need to get special permission. You can’t go to Tibet without a guide either. You can only enter the region as part of a tourist group (even if you are traveling alone).

To get to Lhasa you need to either fly by plane or go by train. Well, you can still go by car, but it’s generally tough. By the way, if you are a foreigner, then formally you cannot get to Tibet while driving a car, only as a passenger (and, again, a member of a tourist group). Although there were such precedents.

The main problem here is the height. Lhasa is located at an altitude of 3490 meters. The train crosses the Tang La Pass at an altitude of 5072 meters (the highest point of this railway), and many on it die from altitude sickness. There is another problem: to make passengers comfortable, oxygen is supplied to the train. They say that because of this, the body then acclimatizes poorly, since during the day on the train it gets hooked on oxygen. In general, all room experts on the Internet strongly recommend against traveling by train.

But this is the highest mountain railway in the world! How can you miss such a miracle? And we went by train. One more point should be noted here. At the height of the tourist season, it is almost impossible to buy train tickets. We need to get them! You must have a special person who will get you a ticket at the last minute. In the process of getting a ticket, the price may double - of course, all this is unofficial.

The tickets were delivered to us the day before the train departed. So, let's go!

01. Xining Main Station, from here it takes 21 hours to get to Lhasa by train! The station is approximately the size of Vnukovo Airport.

02. Tickets cannot be purchased online. More precisely, you can buy it, but then you must go to the cashier with your reservation number and documents and pick them up. To get tickets, you must show permission to enter Tibet. In general, the process is approximately the same as when buying train tickets from Moscow to Kaliningrad (however, our travel permission is given not by the Russian authorities, but by the Lithuanian ones).

03. We received tickets in advance. The livery of ordinary carriages is the same as we had during the Union. The carriages themselves are, of course, new.

04. Waiting room at the station. How do you like it? To enter the station, you need to show your tickets, passport and permit. All this will be scanned, then you will be examined and only then you will be allowed into the building. No mourners or greeters have the right to enter the station.

05. Since Xining is the gateway to Tibet, and Tibet is China, at the station all the screens show Comrade Xi Jinping touring the troops. The videos are shown on all screens without stopping, and there is a reason - the 90th anniversary of the PRC army.

06. Time to catch the train! They are allowed onto the platform immediately before departure.

07. The train to Lhasa is additionally decorated. Look how beautiful it is!

08. The train to Lhasa takes 21 hours. There are three classes of carriages: seated, soft sleeper and hard sleeper. Everything is clear when it comes to sitting, the seating arrangement is 3+2.

09. Soft sleeper is an analogue of our coupe. 4 shelves, bed. Because there are no overhead luggage racks, there is more space between the racks. And the coupe seems more spacious than ours. Each compartment has a socket.

10. If you decide to repeat my feat with a trip by rail, then I strongly recommend that you take tickets for the evening train. At the beginning the road is not very beautiful: steppe and steppe all around. But in the morning, at about 9 o’clock, the Tang-La pass begins, with an altitude of more than 5000 meters. This is already beautiful. Passengers on morning trains do not see all this beauty, as they cross the pass at night.

11. Snow!

12. There is an oxygen supply valve near each shelf.

13. Landscapes

14. Dining car, on the left there is fresh lettuce growing in the drawers.

15. There is a road running along the railway, and loaded trucks slowly trudge along it. According to my feelings, 80% of all transport is trucks. Speaking of which, someone might want to travel to Tibet by car.

16. Highland architecture settlements primitive and dull.

17. Mostly these are some kind of trailers and tents standing in the mud.

18. Let's get back to our train. Facilities include a toilet. My feeling is that it is not washed while it is in use, so the further you go, the sharper the aromas become. It is difficult to sleep near the toilet due to the strong smell.

19. Every third carriage has a toilet for the disabled! It is spacious and cleaner, since few people go there.

20. Along the road, almost every kilometer, there are booths with the inscription “People’s Road Protection.” A soldier sits in each booth and salutes passing trains. There are really a lot of these booths, it’s not very clear what they are for. Maybe they are afraid of sabotage?

21. Although, perhaps these are railway workers, not soldiers.

22. In some places there are no booths, so a guy in uniform comes to the tracks in a car and instead of saluting, he talks on the phone.

23. Beautiful

24. As I already said, there is a dining car on the train. But that's not all! Have you ever seen a karaoke car on a train? Here! And he is here! A whole car of unbridled fun. Here you can buy booze and sing any songs.

25. Despite the fact that drinking alcohol at altitude is strongly discouraged, the local people eat their fill.

26. How much beer does it take to get drunk? Here we must take into account that the strength of Chinese beer is usually 3-4 degrees, so you need to try very hard.

27. The train, by the way, is well decorated.

28.

29. And outside the window there are sheep grazing.

30. And the yaks! Yak is the main animal here, there are some countless herds of them. I have never seen so many yaks before. They say, by the way, that in Tibet half of the dishes are prepared using yak meat (how to say in Russian, “yachatina”?).

31. In the seated class, people also leaven.

32.

33.

34. The train gradually descends, and the snow disappears, green meadows begin.

35. There are no sockets in seated carriages, so people charge their gadgets near the washbasins through numerous extension cords and power banks.

36. A new highway is being built outside the window! Construction has just begun, but somewhere they have already started making overpasses and tunnels.

37. As I understand it, this is protection so that the paths are not blocked in winter? What kind of grid of stones is there? foreground? Why is she?

38. There are few stops, and they are used mainly by locals. A tourist will not be able to get off at a stop, because the Chinese have thought of everything! As soon as you board the train, your ticket is taken away and you are given a plastic card with your seat number instead. To get off at any train station, you must show your ticket! And if there is no ticket, there is no exit in the wrong place! The ticket will be returned to you immediately before arriving at your stop. Like this! In general, everything is strict.

39. The local people are dragging some giant bales with them. In general, it is not clear how they move with them at such a height. It is difficult for an unprepared person to breathe. Very common in China work migration. People constantly travel to work in more developed regions, that is, from the west to the east of the country. They are forced to carry a huge amount of belongings with them, with the help of which they settle in a new place. For example, they can carry with them a mattress on which they sleep at the construction site where they are hired to work.

40. Interior of a seating car

41.

42. There is incredible beauty outside the window!

43. It’s worth going just for the scenery. You sit and constantly shoot out the window.

44. Isn't it a miracle? And yaks are grazing around!

45.

46. ​​There are cameras on every pole! What did you want? Difficult area.

47.

48.

49. A minute of advertising for my good friend! Remember Moishe from New York? He worked as a paparazzi, and I talked about his difficult work. By the way, if you haven’t read it, be sure to read it, it’s cool. So, Moishe got tired of running around New York chasing the stars, and he decided to sell tea! The tea is very good and is delivered all over the world. If any of my readers are in the know, then remember the site. Especially if you live in the USA. Enjoying black tea on the train is not so easy: at altitude the water does not heat up to 100 degrees, and black tea is difficult to brew.

50.

51. In the morning, local drunks began to play cards. The Chinese are very big fans of card games and gambling; this is a very common pastime. Wherein gambling Naturally, it is prohibited to use money in China, but everyone still plays, no one cares for a long time.

52. Clouds gathered over our train.

53. How many yaks are there!

54. What about food? Well, first of all, there is a restaurant car - you already understood that. And secondly, conductors with carts constantly walk around the carriages.

55. They sell all sorts of inedible junk like chocolates and chips, as well as soda. I highly recommend taking food with you.

56. In the morning a cart with milk is driving by.

57. This is all planned construction of the road. Soon there will be a highway to Tibet!

58.

59.

60. Unlike Russian trains, the washbasin in China is not in the toilet, but separately, right next to the vestibule instead of one of the compartments. It’s very convenient: when everyone goes to brush their teeth in the morning, there’s no need to stand in line for the toilet.

61. There is free boiling water in each carriage.

62.

63. We are approaching Lhasa.

64. Active construction of historical and cultural heritage is underway.

65. The trains are very clean, there are carpets everywhere! And the doors between the cars are always open, and you can walk around safely. By the way, the couplings are sealed, there is no noise. You can stand in the vestibule and talk in a whisper.

66.

67. Another station.

68. Inscription on the road: “We will carry out construction in an exemplary manner to preserve the last clean piece of land in the world!”

69. At every station there are people in uniform and keep order

70. Passengers line up in neat queues.

71.

72. And here it is, Lhasa station! Huge!

73. Foreigners must register with the police. They check the permit again and scan the passports.

74. Tomorrow I will start telling you about Tibet! Interestingly?

In every journey, the most important thing is to arrange the transfers correctly. Firstly, because this is the lion's share of the cost of the entire tour. Secondly, the success of the trip and the overall impression often depend on where and what you go to Tibet with.

I am engaged in receiving Russian-speaking tourists in Tibet. Due to the nature of my work, I travel a lot, I can, both from my own experience and from the experience of hundreds of tourists who come to Tibet every month, tell all the pros and cons of different routes to the Roof of the World.

In this short essay I will share my experience of traveling to Tibet by train through Xining (Qinghai Province, China).

I’ll say right away that if it weren’t for work, I would never have gone like this myself. But every year there are travelers (it’s hard to say on what basis) who seriously believe that this is a great way to visit Tibet, saying “gradual acclimatization” and so on. By the way, those who drive into Tibet from Nepal think the same way and then suffer from altitude sickness the entire trip.

Objectively, there are two advantages of visiting Tibet on the route Beijing-Xining air, Xining-Lhasa railway:

1. small savings compared to Beijing-Lhasa air,

2. reduction of risks with the purchase of railway tickets compared to the Beijing-Lhasa railway.

What is the difficulty of traveling to Tibet by train?

Railway tickets for trains entering Tibet are always in short supply. Why? Railway route connecting Tibet with outside world only one. This is the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. All passing trains (Beijing-Lhasa, Shanghai-Lhasa, Guangzhou-Lhasa, Chengdu-Lhasa) gather in Xining. These are trains that run once a day or once every two days. During the tourist season, they are always filled with passengers already at the point of departure. Even at the point of departure, obtaining tickets for these trains becomes a problem if the travel time falls between the end of April and the end of October, as well as on Chinese public holidays. At this time, there are simply no tickets for compartments or reserved seats at the box office, much less on the Internet. All of them are first withdrawn from sale by the state, because this is an important strategic line. Further, through contacts with station managers, tickets partially fall into the hands of professional resellers. And from them, again through connections (since such activity is illegal and punishable), tickets sometimes go to simpler speculators, and then to travel agencies and clients. That is why in China, in addition to the cost of the ticket itself, which is indicated on it, there is also the cost of services for purchasing a ticket. At the height of the tourist season (July, August, September and holidays), the cost of services can be equal to, and sometimes even exceed, the cost of the ticket itself. Therefore, in summer, groups traveling to Tibet from China are recommended to fly by plane: less problems, faster, easier acclimatization and not much more expensive than a train, which takes two days to get there.

The second difficulty of traveling to Tibet by train is acclimatization. This applies to all trains to Tibet, since they all pass through Xining and use the same Qinghai-Tibet Railway to enter Lhasa in Tibet. Why is acclimatization worse by train? Because the body begins to feel the altitude and adapt to it, overcoming 3000 meters above sea level, and everything up to 3000 is felt as sea level, there is no difference. Arriving by plane in Lhasa, you reach an altitude of 3650 meters, and calmly acclimatize for one night. By following basic safety rules on the first evening (move little, do not drink alcohol, smoke less and do not shower), you will easily acclimatize and in the morning you will already feel like you are at sea level. It's different on the train. Firstly, on the second night, when you are already pretty tired from the road, the train overcomes an altitude of 5200 meters above sea level, passing the Tangula Pass. This is a serious test for any organism, even for people who have lived in the mountains for many years or have experience traveling in the highlands. Secondly, oxygen is supplied to the train, which prevents the body from adapting to altitude naturally. If you immediately “get hooked” on oxygen, then upon arrival in Lhasa you will also need it, and without it you will have a headache and all the symptoms of altitude sickness will be yours. Thirdly, the train has only a few stops, there is no opportunity to get off and get some fresh air. Fourthly, on trains that take two days there is also a nurse who has nothing good in her first aid kit other than brilliant green. And there are no doctors on trains that travel overnight. Health problems often occur and conductors run around the carriages looking for any doctors among the passengers.

I had funny incident, in my permit to enter Tibet they wrote that I am a doctor, but this is not true, I do not have the medical knowledge to provide assistance. So, at night on the Xining-Lhasa train the conductor wakes me up: “Girl, girl, are you a doctor?” In my sleep I remember that the permit says so, I quickly react that since it’s written, I have to say “yes”, suddenly she checks me (which also happens). “Doctor,” I say. - “Urgently, in another carriage a child was burned by boiling water, help!” - .... child, boiling water .... no, I can’t help in such cases, I decide, and answer: “Sorry, I can’t treat such problems,” and continue to sleep. About 20 minutes later, about eight people come to my compartment with a crying child in their arms, the poor child’s skin is all torn open, he is screaming, how can I help, there is no doctor on the train!!! The frightened Uighur mother begs me to help them... Called himself a milk mushroom - get into the back. I had to say that I am a doctor-psychologist, and I don’t understand such matters... The neighbors in the carriage began to give popular advice: apply a cucumber and the like, but in fact the situation with the burn was already at the stage when the help of a specialist was required, so my conscience is clear, because I did not give popular advice, the only thing you can do in such cases is to survive the night, wait until the next day, get off the train and run to the hospital in Lhasa.

So, about the trip from Xining to Tibet

There are only 6 flights per day from Beijing to Xining. The planes are small Boeing 737. The most suitable flight, of course, is the earliest, so as not to spend the night in Xining. Having arrived on the earliest flight from the airport, you can immediately go to the railway station and take the Xining-Lhasa train in the afternoon. Xining Airport, despite the fact that it is a large transport hub, is very small. If you fly to Xining, you will be greeted at the airport with a sign. Greeters stand immediately after the baggage claim area. There are no Russian-speaking guides in Xining, so here you will be met by an English-speaking person. Per level in English There is no point in hoping here. Still, Xining lags far behind, for example, Beijing or Lhasa in terms of the level of development of tourism services.

If you are planning excursions in Qinghai (Taer (Kumbum) Monastery or Qinghai Lake), then you can fly on any Beijing-Lhasa flight, check into a hotel in Xining and travel around Xining.

If you immediately want to travel to Tibet, then having arrived Beijing-Xining on the earliest flight from the airport, you must immediately go to the railway station. Train Xining (Lanzhou) - Lhasa number 917 departs at 15-04. If there are other trains. 3 hours before the train departure, tickets are no longer issued. Therefore, for example, if you are traveling independently and decided to resolve the issue of your train tickets yourself, say, you have tickets issued on the Internet, then you must receive them at the ticket office before 12 noon. And to do this, you always have to stand in a giant queue, present a permit to Tibet and original passports. If you use the services of a travel agency, we will do everything for you without the original of your passport. In Xining, we have direct connections with professional resellers of train tickets. They often work miracles. But they too are powerless when political restrictions come into play.

It happens that tickets are ordered and paid for, but never go on sale, and the trains will leave empty (!), but there will be no tickets for sale! You may never understand the real reasons for this situation. Why? For example, one of these days, a provocative action will take place in some village, in which national minorities of the PRC (Tibetans, Uyghurs, etc.) will take part. In such cases, the government often restricts entry into problem areas. Tibet suffers from this constantly! For example, when I was traveling on the Xining-Lhasa train in April 2012, according to rumors (and usually these are rumors, they will never talk about it in the news), “something similar happened” in the village of Yushu. So for 5 days after our arrival, tickets from Xining to Lhasa were not on sale, and the trains were half empty.

Here I would like to explain to travelers why train tickets in China, especially for trains to Tibet, are always problematic, and until the last moment tickets are not issued to tourists. This is exactly the situation with train tickets in China. Therefore, do not torment yourself with questions “why?”, “But it’s not like that with us...”. This is a feature of China; if you choose to travel by train, there is always a risk of problems with arrival. If you don’t want these problems, it’s better to fly by plane; there are no such problems with air tickets!

I especially appeal to pilgrims and tourists to Mount Kailash. The journey is not easy, it will require physical and moral strength from you. If your budget does not allow you to fly to Tibet and back, then choose this option: to Tibet by air, from Tibet by train. This way you won’t arrive in Tibet tired from the train, you won’t harm your acclimatization, and train tickets for trains leaving Tibet are always easier to get than for trains entering Tibet.

Sealed carriages, individual oxygen masks for each passenger, specially designed locomotives, endless overpasses on permafrost, dozens of deserted stations against the backdrop of snow-capped mountain peaks - all this is a unique Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

The cost of building this 1,150 km long highway cost China $3.5 billion. The stand lasted 5 years, it used the most advanced railway construction technologies. The highway project was made in the 1920s, approved by 1960, but due to the “Great Leap Forward”, which had a disastrous effect on the Chinese economy, the project was frozen . In 1974, construction began on a section of the road from the city of Xining to Golmud, already on the Tibetan Plateau. About 800 kilometers of railway were built in five years by the army and prisoners. Although the railway was built in 1979, passenger service opened only in 1984.

Work on the second, high-altitude section to Lhasa was associated with engineering tasks of particular complexity: the builders had to work in conditions of permafrost, lack of oxygen and, moreover, the unique Tibetan ecosystem, the preservation of which was declared a matter of paramount importance by the Chinese Party and government. Construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway began in 2001. About 20,000 workers, who simultaneously began laying the highway from both end points (Golmud and Lhasa), completed the important task of the party in just five years. The total length of the new railway was to be 1,142 kilometers. On this site, 45 stations were organized, 38 of which were automatic, without maintenance personnel.

The Tibetan highway from Golmud rose from an altitude of 2800 meters above sea level to the Tang La Pass (5072 meters) and then descended again to Lhasa (3642 meters). 960 kilometers of the railway passed through difficult mountainous areas at an altitude of over 4000 meters above sea level, of which about 550 kilometers were located in the permafrost zone. In total, there are 675 bridges along its 1,142 kilometers, with a total length of 160 kilometers.

The supports of these overpasses are essentially piles, the bases of which rest deep in the permafrost, due to which seasonal thawing of the upper layer does not have any effect on the stability of the structure’s structure. In addition to the technical component, an important advantage of overpass sections is the fact that they do not interfere with the free movement of sometimes unique representatives of the local fauna under the highway. The negative effect of foreign inclusion in the Tibetan ecosystem is thus reduced to a minimum.

350 kilometers from Golmud at an altitude of 4900 meters above sea level, the highest railway tunnel in the world, called Fenghuoshan, was built.

In most cases, train doors do not even open at stations. For an unprepared person, being at such an altitude, where the atmospheric pressure is only about 35-40% of the standard at sea level, poses a certain health risk. Most of the stations are deserted, since they are essentially just sidings on a single-track highway, and there are no populated areas nearby.

Special rolling stock was developed for the Qinghai-Tibet Road. The American corporation General Electric designed NJ2 diesel locomotives for the line, modified for operation in high mountain conditions, with a power of 5100 hp. With. every. The locomotives are capable of reaching speeds of up to 120 km/h with a train of 15 cars. In permafrost zones, their speed is limited to 100 km/h. The weight of diesel locomotives is 138 tons.

The cars for road maintenance were built at the Chinese plant of the Canadian concern Bombardier in the amount of 361 units. All of them are virtually hermetically sealed from the environment; oxygen pressure close to standard is maintained inside. To prevent attacks of altitude sickness, each seat in the carriages is equipped with individual oxygen tubes, similar to hospital ones. Tinted windows of cars with a special coating protect passengers from excess solar radiation, again characteristic of high mountains. The cars are divided into seated, reserved seat and compartment cars; there are even dining cars. The Beijing-Lhasa Express takes 44 hours to travel. The cost of tickets, depending on the class, ranges from $125 (reserved seat) to $200 (compartment).