Got another 5 hours or so on the train, but we have seen a lot so far. The first train stopped in xining where we had 3 hours to look around. That was bizarre. On the one side of the river there was endless apartments being built, but no one had moved in. The street lights were there but not activated. They had a massive stadium, but it wasn't quite finished. It was like a ghost town with construction workers. And when I say endless apartments I estimate enough housing for at least 500,000 people. There were probably more high rises under construction than there are high rises in Edmonton.
Anyway we got some fresh noodles close to the train station and got on the Lhasa train. It was dark when we got on so we just went to sleep. Waking up we were greeted by the tundra wasteland that seemed to go on endlessly. Just rock based wind barriers next to the train tracks, the occasional road and power lines. As I'm writing this we are passing a lot of yak and sheep farms.
The train got up to 5000 m elevation. They began pumping oxygen into our carriage but some of them don't have oxygen. Luckily the train has oxygen outlets for everyone, so lots of people are hooked up with tubes. One small girl in the adjacent carriage almost passed out but the doctor got her sorted out.
Oh and my bag of Cheetos I got in Beijing swelled up and exploded from the change in air pressure. (In a boring way, it happened at night and none spilled out)
Anyway assuming I get reliable Internet in Lhasa you'll get this when we arrive.
Pictures:
Xining construction
Xining stadium
Train messages provided by pacman
Tibetan plateau
Tsonag Lake
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