Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet – Day 21/Part 2

July 5, 2014July 5, 2014 by Kaushik

This railway is a wonder of modern world of engineering and covered in NGC and Discovery many times but still looking at it and believing that they really made it was certainly amazing. The road to Lhasa from Golmud would be a pleasure to drive with high mountain passes, ice and snow all around, vast grassland, Tibetan village, Nomadic tents, sheep and yaks, the blue streams, wonderful sky with lovely clouds all would make a treat to your eyes. Not only this, there are 5 roads to Lhasa from different directions, all 5 are said to be a must drive for anyone who wants to see how versatile nature could be.

They are:

Sichuan/Yunan South Road — Known as another face of Tibet, a lush green country inside Tibet called Switzerland of Tibet. Presently closed for foreigners.

Sichuan / Yunan North Road — Must drive if you really want to see the Tibetan lives and cultures, passes through heartland of Tibet. Presently closed for foreigners.

Golmud – Lhasa Road — Can be done but reaching Golmud is a big ask as from Xining to Golmud the Delingha county is completely closed for foreigners. This one I am trying to show but it’s easier to cross through train rather than road because of complex logistics.

Kathmandu – Lhasa Road (Friendship Highway) – Amazing road through High Himalayas, passes through Everest and Shisapangma (Whole region is filled up with 8000 meters peak) — This can be done and I did in this trip, will cover in this log later.

Kashgar/Karghilik – Lhasa (The epic highway 219) — Probably if someone needs to know what wilderness is in High Pamir / Karakoram/Himalayan region, its must drive, the road goes for 1500km over 4500 meter and cross innumerable 5000+ meter passes and most desolate and deadly road to drive. This cuts through disputed India-China LAC of Aksai Chin. Foreigners can do but severely restricted if you are an Indian Passport Holder.

The magical vista continues:

Pastureland will make you amazed:

The awesome vista continued:

The scenery continued (Remember all shots are taken from running train at 100 kmph, so capability of frame selection was extremely limited, it was just click as you like):

And the show goes on:

There was no chain to pull to stop Chinese Train, I was frustratingly keep clicking sometimes from left and sometimes from right window, missed at least 100 frames in every 10 mins.

Approaching the end of Changthang Region and the huge grassland that started 1000 km behind at Golmud:

Now inching towards Lhasa:

First view of Lhasa River:

Now we will enter Lhasa town but unfortunately we are entering from North where the characterless Chinese extension of Lhasa you will see first.

First view of Modern (Read Chinese) Lhasa:

Previous: Day 21/Part 1

Next: Day 22

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Day 21/Part 1

July 5, 2014July 5, 2014 by Kaushik

Day 21:

We didn’t really understood how the morning 9 hours had been passed as we were simply mesmerized by the scenery and landscape surrounding us. Let’s see the snaps and enjoy the wonderful journey.
We came back to reality when the attendant gave us back the tickets and informed us that Lhasa was just 10 mins away. We quickly got ready and then finally got down the train and surprised to see the Lhasa station, some documentary film was being shot but still it was a very nice looking terminal building and we were suddenly caught by 2 persons who didn’t say anything but started escorting us. We didn’t understand, they took our bags and straightaway took us out of the station terminal. I spoken to my guide over phone and he said he would be waiting for me outside station. Guessing these guides as touts, I tried to convince them that my guide was waiting and I didn’t need any help but as usual they didn’t understand anything but kept walking with our luggage. Being little apprehensive I followed them and then suddenly spotted my guide with the a sign board, written my name on it, it was a big relief for me. The 2 persons took me to my guide and guide gave them a copy of our permit after signing that and then I realized it was the police without uniform and they don’t let any foreigners go unescorted. We got introduced to our guide Tashi who was another gem of a person and we were taken to hotel Shambala Palace, the traditional Tibetan Hotel where we were supposed to stay 3 nights. We were tired, just saw first glimpse of Potala Palace from our room itself. We had an early dinner and first time we started finding Indian and Nepalese food in menu card from here. We gone to bed as next day would be our local sightseeing in Potala Palace and visiting Sera Monastery.

The Magic Continues:

Nomadic Tents:

The Amazing Rivers:

Unique use of Bike – Running away the Tibetan Yak:

Small Village:

Amazing Vista:

The river flowing through grassland:

Mountain Scenery Continues:

A Village with 2/3 house:

River Bed:

The more I see, the more I surprise:

Yaks grazing:

Small Village:

Again a River:

Previous: Day 20/Part 3

Next: Day 21/Part 2

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Day 20/Part 3

July 5, 2014July 5, 2014 by Kaushik

Scenery Changes every minute:

Clouds are adding dimensions:

The Rail gate though not like our level crossing, shows a glimpse of unpaved road of rural Tibet:

To protect fragile ecosystem, powers are mostly generated from non-conventional sources and a lot of wind mills and solar energy system you would see

The panoramic Qinghai Tibet Highway cutting across the Tibet Plateau:

Tibetan Village:

Qinghai – Tibet Railway:

The station : look at the setting and the height:

The Train:

Just outside the station:

The platform:

The Trains going through Plateau:

Small Village and pastureland:

Vast landscape:

Yaks Grazing:

Nomadic life at its best:

Lakes and rivers are abundant:

The Lake:

Run down Tibetan house:

Naggula Range:

Previous: Day 20/Part 2

Next: Day 21/Part 1

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Day 20/Part 2

July 5, 2014July 5, 2014 by Kaushik

Day 20 Continued…

The harsh geo-climatic condition posed immense challenge to build this engineering marvel but the most challenging of them were

1. Doing such a mammoth work in such a great height with very low oxygen level, thus protecting health of the worker

2. Proetction of fragile eco-system of the region when building the railway track

3. Building 550km of rail road through permafrost (perennially frozen ground) region.

Low Oxygen Level:

85% of the track goes over 4000 meter where Oxygen level is 50% to 60% of sea level and many places annual average temperature is close to freezing point. To ensure the health of the workers and engineers, 115 medical facilities with around 600 medical professionals were deployed in project. 17 Oxygen producing plants were installed and a clinic in every 10km was setup allowing sick workers to access medical treatment rapidly and effectively. Chinese Claims that during 5 years of construction of this 2000km track not a single worker lost his life.

Fragile Eco System:

Qinghai Tibet Plateau is having a very fragile ecosystem and home to many rare animals and source of most of the rivers in China. China invested almost 2 Billion CNY to protect the eco system as a part of the whole project cost.
All waster waters were processed in sewage treatment plant and solid waste was recycled before discharging.
Routes were realigned to minimize the impact on animals like Tibetan Antelope, Wild Ass etc. even though that increased the project cost substantially.
25 passageways built for animals based on their migration habit and fences were installed on both sides of railway track to prevent wild animals wandering into track.
In order to avoid disturbance the Tibetan antelope mating season in June-July, the builders stopped work for a period, withdrew equipment from construction site, and also removed the colored flags, which would alert frighten the Tibetan Antelope.
Construction sites were selected and designed to ensure that vegetation was not destroyed. To prevent damage to permafrost, wetlands and grasslands, 675 bridges with a total length of about 160km were built between Golmud and Lhasa which was almost one seventh of the total distance of this section.
Since the operation of Qinghai-Tibet Railway in 2006, all the stations use environment friendly energy sources such as electricity, solar energy, wind energy for heating. All garbages are collected, processed and recycled in all the stations and all the rail cars.

Permafrost Region:

Around 550km the railway track had to pass through the places with permafrost which features soft and wet soil in summer and hard and stretching soil in winter, ensuring the roadbed stability is the biggest challenge to the engineers.
Chinese adopted few techniques like avoiding permafrost as much as possible by building bridge instead of railroad. It’s expensive but has lesser impact on the area. The 12 km long Qingshuihe Bridge is longest bridge ever built on permafrost region.
The most impostant solution to permafrost were stone embankments – a layer of loosely piled chunks of granite about the size of baseballs. that allow enough space between rocks for air to circulate freely and stabilizing the roadbed temperature.
In some places, the engineers buried ventilation pipes in the ground that allow cold air to circulate underneath the roadbed and monitoring systems were installed to see the temperature change along the railroad.

The Tuotuo River sources from main peaks of Tanggula Range, which is source of China’s longest river Yangtze:

Amazing Grass land and Pastureland:

Old Tibetan Village:

How many shades God used here:

Fencing to protect wild life to come to the railway track:

Low land with lake far away:

Reflection:

The Lake is nearing now:

Amazing railway station, just beside a glacial lake Am I dreaming!!

Day 20 Continued…

Major Milestones achieved so far:

June 2001, construction of Qinghai – Tibet railway officially started at Golmud.
Octobet 2005, rail links Lhasa to Golmud but track testing, signaling work was yet to be done.
July 2006, just 5 years after start Qinghai – Tibet Railway put in operation.
Number of passengers were 6.5 million in 2006 was doubled to 12 million by 2012
September 2010, first extension of Qinghai Tibet railway started and we saw it’s almost completed till Shigatse and in 2014, train till Shigatse will be operational.

Future Roadmap:

Shigatse will be further connected to Kathmandu via friendship highway to give Nepal it’s first rail network.
China already taken up plan to connect Lhasa Nyngchi as second extension.
Further to that the Sichuan Lhasa railroad would be built by connecting Chengdu to Nyngchi.
Next plan is to connect Yunan – Tibet railway from Kunming Dali, Lijang, Zhondian connect it with Sichuan – Lhasa line.
Last but not the least is the ambitious Chinese plan to connect Xinjiang – Tibet by railroad.
Once they execute the whole plan, we will see the rail road from Ladakh to Arunachal in the other side Himalaya where as we may still have walking trails for our army to man the remote post walking for days. I remember I spoke to Indian Army in Kibithu couple of years back in Eastern Arunachal where they said they need 21 days to go and come back patrolling the remote tri junction border of India with China and Myanmar by foot.

Cuona Lake – Lying 4800 meter above sea level this is one the highest fresh water lake in world and it’s closest to Qinghai Tibet Railway, amazing is the view from Train Much bigger than our Pangong / Tsomoriri :

Change of Colors:

Again some color Change:

Color change happens in every minute:

Lake and sheep grazing:

Reflection

Vast Grassland:

Previous: Day 19 and 20/Part 1

Next: Day 20/Part 3

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Day 19 and 20/Part 1

July 5, 2014July 5, 2014 by Kaushik

Day 19:

We woke up early in the morning and realized catching a 9.30 flight actually means catching a 7.30 flight in Xinjiang (as whole China runs in Beijing time officially) and in autumn, in that latitude 7.30 morning local time means it still dark. We left 7.00 in morning which means again 5.00 as per local time and it was quite cold even in first week of October in Urumqi. We reached airport from hotel in 40 mins as traffic was thinner and this time we knew Chinese system, so quickly checked in our luggage and then at security I realized something gone wrong when the security desk personnel pointed me towards back and only thing I understood was he was mentioning the check in counter. Meanwhile my wife and kid had gone into security area, but I had nothing to do but to go back to check in counter, they looked at the computer and uttered only one meaningful word to me that was ‘luggage’, now I took 10 mins to understand that in China they gave boarding pass without scanning the check in luggage and luggage got scanned later and there was a designated luggage scanning center where you have to be present if there is something in your check in luggage which is objectionable as per Chinese rules. I ran to luggage scan center, they couldn’t speak English, so they took me to scanning monitor and pointed out something in my bag, I realized they were showing the camera battery which is not allowed in check in luggage. I quickly asked him in sign language to get me the bag, I took battery out, gone to security and she again pointed me towards check in counter, what a frustration!! I went back there understood they would stamp the boarding pass again and after that when I reached security desk again, I realized I have lost my passport, then the next 20 mins were the most tensed moment in my entire trip, family was inside the security, I couldn’t communicate with them, neither I could tell any airport staff that my passport is lost as no one as usual understand any English, even the key word like “Passport”. I was keep running to security –> Check in –> Luggage Scan center in different orders and finally got it under someone else bag in luggage scan center. I think somehow in hurry I put the passport when getting the batteries out and then it gone out of my mind completely. Lessons learnt was you need lot of time if you want to catch a domestic flight in China, profusely sweating I reached inside security where my family was anxiously waiting and next 10 mins I just sat and thought what happened to me for last 30 mins, surprisingly the Terminal 3 of Urumqi Airport has no smoking room, I badly need to smoke at that time to calm down my nerves. Anyway the flight departed on time. I booked my hotel in Xining through ctrip, it was a four star hotel and supposed to be only hotel in Xining where people understand some English. I arranged for a car to pick me up from Airport and drop me to Railway station next day and it was a Chinese woman who came to pick me up. Xining Airport is 45 km from city, so we spent 45 mins total with her without a single conversation, another frustrating moment of trip, just the language couldn’t help me to talk with someone who was driving me for 45 mins, helping me with luggage. Xining is a very nice looking town with lots of touch of Buddhism and I started finding Lamas with traditional attires there, felt like coming home. The Hotel Sanwant stay was quite good and it’s a highly recommended hotel in Xining though it’s costly, double room with breakfast was almost 500 CNY in off season. Now tomorrow would be another big day for us as we would board Qinghai Tibet Train, the world’s highest rail road travelling on average height of 5000 meters for 1000km between Golmud and Lhasa.

Day 20:

The High Altitude Qinghai – Tibet railway starts from Xining actually and the most scenic part of the route crossing Kunlun range and the Tibet Plateau starts after Golmud and continue till Lhasa. So it’s advisable to cross the Golmud – Lhasa (Almost 1000km) as much as possible during day light so you can enjoy the nature at it best. Now to do that, you need to catch train from Xining as late as possible. Presently there are 5 trains runs regularly between Xining and Lhasa though most of them originates from Eastern Part of Mainland China but all route finally meets at Xining and from Xining onwards it takes the same route. This year time table was as follows:

I have arranged the train as per their departure time sequence from Xining except for K9811 which is a seasonal train.

Few Thumb rules of getting Tibet Train Tickets:

1. Its always advisable you take help of a good agent to get these tickets rather than trying to buy your own as most likely you won’t get it in high season.

2. Try to get tickets in train which departs Xining later so you get best part of the route in day light.

3. Getting tickets easier from origin station of train than in between station. So if you take the train from Xining, your chance is highest with K9801 or K9811. Chances are very difficult for trains started from far yet popular cities like Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai.

4. It’s always easier to get tickets of train in reverse directions originating from Lhasa.

5. There are 3 classes, Soft Sleeper (4 berth like AC-2 tier), Hard Sleeper (6 Berths like AC-3 tier) and Hard Seat (Equivalent to AC Chair Car) and ticket price is costliest in Soft Sleeper and cheapest in hard seat.

6. Price varies between Berths, lower berth is costliest and upper is cheapest.

Boarding a train is kind of boarding a flight except the fact that you can carry all your luggage with you but most important is you need to wait in your designated boarding area after identifying the correct waiting room as the approach to platform is possible from that specific waiting room and travelers are allowed to platform only after train arrives and you hardly have 5/10 mins to go to platform and board the train.

Boarding Area (Waiting Area 3) for our Train 223:

It’s also advisable to get 4 copies of your Tibet Permit as you have to give one copy to enter the station with a Lhasa bound train ticket and other copy is collected at the waiting room check in gate to platform and another copy is collected by ticket checker at platform before you board the train. You need one copy with you as that will be asked for when you get down from Train in Lhasa and will be required until you are handed over to your guide by police. Once you get into the train, your tickets are taken away by Ticket collector and instead you would be handed over by plastic cards which you would carry till the remaining journey. You would get your original tickets back just 10 mins before arrival to your final station. This is good as you would get a reminder (even if you sleep) that your destination is approaching but I think another reason is to monitor your movement, you simply can’t get down in between any station you wish as you don’t have your original ticket with you and you would be caught in platform itself.

Xining City:

The Qinghai Lake beside the track is amazing, Qinghai lake is China’s largest lake:

Day 20 Continued…

Qinghai – Tibet Railway is certainly a modern day engineering wonder from China which must be experienced at least once in lifetime. The highlights of Tibet Railways are fascinating apart from the majestic scenery it offers.

Few of the highlights are:

1. The world’s highest railway, 960km of the railroad lies above 4000 meters where as highest point touches more than 5000 meters and there by at least 200 mtr higher than previous highest railway of world, the Peruvian railway in Andes.

2. This is world’s longest plateau railroad, total length from Xining – Lhasa is 1996 km where as highest part of Golmud Lhasa section cuts across Kunlun and Tanggula mountain ranges for a length of 1150km.

3. The world’s longest track on frozen earth. 550km of railroad built on permafrost region.

4. Tanggula situated at 5068 meter is highest railway station of World.

5. Fenghoushan Tunnel of Qinghai Tibet Railway built at over 4900 meter is the most elevated tunnel built on frozen earth.

6. Kunlun Mountain Tunnel is world’s longest plateau tunnel built on frozen earth having length of around 1.7km

7. Qinshui Railway bridge built on 4500 meter in Hoh Xil Nature Reserve is the longest plateau railway bridge covering around 12km.

8. World’s fastest train in frozen earth where it runs at 100km per hour speed on frozen earth and 120km per hour in rest of the track.

Tibetan Ibex:

Fencing to protect wild animals to move into the track:

The rivers in colorful plateau:

Shadow of the world’s highest train in highest plateau:

Amazing Tibet Plateau:

Golmud – Lhasa Road is going side by side:

Bridge cutting across Plateau:

Amazing Landscape:

Our height and note the graph on the watch for last 8 hours were in that height, it’s exactly the same, and so it’s a plateau:

Permafrost region near Kunlun Mountain Ranges:

Vast Plateau:

Blue river on colorful Plateau:

Passengers in this train mostly spend their time looking outside, it’s amazing journey:

Qinshui Railway bridge built on 4500 meter in Hoh Xil Nature Reserve is the longest plateau railway bridge covering around 12km.

Amazing vista all around:

This is harshest area along the track unmanned Hoh Xil , which is home to many wild animals and birds in China, though due to low oxygen level uninhabitable for human, it is haven for 230 species of wild animals including Tibetan Antelope, Wild Ass, Wild Yak,White lip deer, snow leopards, Tibetan snow pheasants etc.

Previous: Day 17 and 18

Next: Day 20/Part 2

Explore The Unexplored

Tag: Golmud

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet – Day 21/Part 2

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Day 21/Part 1

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Day 20/Part 3

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Day 20/Part 2

Xinjiang, China’s Central Asia and incredible Tibet–Day 19 and 20/Part 1