On the way to Tibet

The next morning the train started to wake up at 7am, Jody still fast asleep as the snoring and noisy man keeping her awake all night meant she needed more rest. It was time to charge the laptop, the hard sleepers come with the occasional mains points so plugging in to the mains was not a problem. The problem was that they did not supply any power! Asking the conductor to see if they could turn them on, they said NO! Oh, okay. So a trip down to meet our American friends in first class proved to be worthwhile as they had power :-) We spent the day chatting to The Aussie, Ben who spent most of the day in our carriage with us. He was trying to become a professional photographer and he had some amazing photographs on his laptop - mainly from South America which has spurred us on to think about our next trip! We also used the time to read books, gen up on Lhasa and Tibet from our Chinese Lonely Planet Guide Book, and upload our photos from our cameras to the laptop (now recharged). All the while we were interrupted by fabulous views outside the window and we would all stop what we were doing to rush and take a photograph. You could see our Chinese travelling companions were quite amused by all this. Despite the railway being so long you still find people picking up the rubbish from the train tracks, this country is either obsessive about keeping itself clean or the government employ people to keep it clean. I think it is more the latter as this gives people a sense of purpose and a role in society. Lights out at 10pm again, everyone was tired an soon the hard sleep carriage was quite and everyone was fast asleep. One thing again the top bunk is that the air conditioning come out from the roof, so not only do you have a small head space to move around you are blasted with the air conditioning all night. Just to make matters worst at 7am the lights, which just so happen to be about 6 inches away from your head on the top bunk, come back on and the blinding light wakes you up. The middle bunk is okay which also has a good view out of the window. But the best bunk has to the the lower bunk as this also acts as a chair during the long days. The only problem is everyone else wants to sit on it with you! Day two, we wake up at 7am to be greeted with the Tibetan landscape, very similar to that of Mongolia but with the addition of being over 4,000 metres high and mountain peaks lining the skyline. 4,000mtrs is over three times the height of Ben Nevis in The UK! We are now on the perma frost, this is where the ground never gets above minus one degree celsius all year round. Apparently this is a civil engineering problem as foundations can't be laid on ground below zero degrees. To overcome the freezing ground they have electric poles planted in the ground, into the foundations which act like an electric blanket for the foundations. The landscape now is vast, stretching in all directions, snow covered mountains and the plateau going off for miles. Bryan had a slight headache, which is possibly a cause of the high altitude. But nothing to write home about. Jody is ok though and just enjoying the views out the window. Since about 6am this morning they have been pumping oxygen enriched air into the carriage. You only really know this when you walk passed the oxygen points and hear them hissing. Is it making much of a difference? not really as we've managed to open a window to let some fresh air in as it is quite warm in our carriage. Of course the train staff keep closing it each time they go past, so we just open it again. By now the toilets are starting to smell, especially the squat toilets. So a trip to first class is called for should nature call, where they have western toilets and are used by fewer people. The Chinese don't seem to need any deodorant, but the westerners that are travelling on the train are starting to smell of BO. The need to have showers on this train has become evident. But luckily we've only got another eight hours before we arrive at Lhasa. Only two hours away from Lhasa and the mountains are getting even more stunning, snow covered capes, the rivers are turquoise blue or green in colour and clear flowing. Just beautiful.