The Train Across the Roof of the World ...

Welcome to the highest railway lines in the world - the train journey to Lhasa, Tibet. The Swiss said it couldn't be done but, unveiled in October last year, the tracks cross a pass of over 5,000m, travel over permafrost and include over 120km of bridges. The carriages also have pressurised cabins and oxygen masks. We saw one of our fellow passengers being hooked up to an oxygen line - weird. The views out the window are of some of the remotest land in the world.. (obligatory Chinese truck in the picture though!)

There are several different ways to ride this train. Being the budget travellers we are (and having been given little choice by the fact that scalpers buy up all of the sleeper tickets for the black market) we travelled hard seat from Chengdu for a nonstop 3360km over 45 bum-numbing hours. The views out the window are the same, however it is probably fair to say that the sleeper ticket holders have a better chance of getting some sleep.

We tried to learn from others travelling in our carriage who seemed to have no trouble:

But in the end I tried some innovation in my efforts to pretend 'hard seat' was a sleeper car. To his disgust Shaun was unable to fit under the seat.

We are now in Lhasa wheezing our way up single flights of stairs ..

M

China?

Yes and no.

Our discussions with the Exit - Entry Branch of the Chinese Public Security Bureau (the PSB) in Chengdu led us to Venice, at least Venice as recreated inside the Venetian Casino in Macau (a larger and more impressive copy of the copy of the 'Venice' inside the Venetian Casino in Las Vegas).

According to 'regulations' as interpreted by the Chengdu PSB our Chinese visas could only be extended when they had less that 5 days left to run on them which is fine - except at that stage we expected to be in Tibet where we are informed extensions are universally refused. What to do? Fly with Air China to Hong Kong of course, which although technically part of China (as is Macau) operates under different regualtions allowing visa free entry for New Zealanders and from where our re-entry into 'China' would restart our Chinese visas.

Staying in the cheapest accomodation we could find in Kowloon we managed to live it up on a tour to the Hong Kong Jockey Club's Sha Tin Racecourse where we could view the racing from a box in the Members' Stand and most importantly enjoy the open bar and international buffet - yes that means we were allowed to eat and drink as much as we wanted!



To round off our sinful break from the Chinese mainland we spent a few days in Macau where thanks to the Grand Lisboa and Venetian casinos I left 700 Macao Patacas (about NZD$140) richer than I arrived (Michaela came out 100 Patacas ahead) and with a newly found respect for Chinese gamblers who've pushed Macau ahead of Las Vegas in the money stakes.

I should mention that Macau is a fascinating mix of Eastern and Western cultures with the Portugese influence still felt a decade after Macau was handed back to China (including all official signs being in both Chinese and Portugese, and what seems like dozens of beautiful Catholic churches where I was able to seek forgiveness for my gambling ways).

We've now arrived back in Chengdu and have tickets to Lhasa by train on 26 September in 'hard seat' class, a journey which is expected to take 45 hours and involve tunnels through some of the highest mountains on the planet and oxygen tubes in the cabins to combat altitude sickness ...

S

Shangri-La

After exploring the historic towns of Dali and Lijiang it was time to head for Chengdu (capital of Sichuan province and our staging point for the train to Lhasa) via the mountains of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces (formerly part of Tibet).

The only mode of transport available to us was Chinese public bus. For those yet to enjoy the pleasures of Chinese public buses you need to be prepared for:

A. Spitting on the floor (it doesn't matter whether the floor is carpeted, tiled or vinyl);
B. Virtually all Han Chinese males smoking;
C. The occasional breakdown ...

And;
D. Toilet stops to be either beside the roadside or at toilets comprising a concrete trench to be squatted over which may or may not have some flushing mechanism ...

[While Michaela did take a picture of a particular 'cubicle' she came across which had no flushing mechanism and hadn't been cleaned since the Ming Dynasty we do have some limits as to what we'll show on this blog]

The scenery outside of the bus was simply stunning. This hasn't been lost on the Chinese who have renamed one town Shangri-La (formerly Zhongdian) after the mythical location in James Hilton's 'Lost Horizon'. Shangri-La does have the requisite stunning monastery ...

Although for my money the town of Litang (a few more days travel by bus) is a better candidate as it sits on a plateau at around 4,200 metres surrounded by peaks of up to 7,000 metres and has a wonderful peaceful feel to it (when you're not wheezing due to the altitude).

Arrival in Chengdu meant Panda time at the Giant Panda Research Base and negotiations for our entry into the Tibetan province.

S

Adventures in the old town

Every day is a culinary adventure in China. Our attempts to order meals like the one above are often limited to having to point out raw ingredients from a doorstep selection such as the one below. We have seen eels, frogs, skewered grasshoppers and all sorts of other raw delicacies available for inclusion in a dinner meal. A little scary when the menu is all in Chinese and the excitement of recognising the character for 'pork' is coloured by the fact that the other 5 characters in front of it may mean 'heart and intestine of'.
Nevertheless we are forging bravely ahead. We have spent about 5 days in two of China's most famous old preserved villages - Dali and Lijiang.
They are both very picturesque and seem to be full of old people doing the work while the beautiful young things sit around and pout prettily for pictures. Parents please take note.

In our continuing search for examples of good English we uncovered the following disappointing restriction when looking to cross Lake Erhai on a bike ride out of Dali:

More to follow from the marathon bus ride through the mountains to Chengdu (Shaun's idea)

M

China - behind the bamboo curtain

We are now in China - a world away again from sleepy Laos. It has been a serious culture shock to move from a place where the streets look like this (below is the Lao equivalent of a major State Highway in NZ - not joking):

to this (the view from the Kunming railway station down one of Kunming's main streets): It's not only the streets that are different. I have so far been lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that everywhere else so far, using two words of the relevant language then moving onto English has worked. Not so in China. In fact China has its own form of English which makes things even more interesting sometimes:

We are busy collecting lots of examples of this and will try to include them in future blogs.

Now for the drug bust ... we were happily(?) squished into some Asian-person sized sleeper seats on another one of many 9 hour bus rides last week when the police boarded our bus and - 30 long minutes later - one of our fellow passengers was posing for photos over his sleeper bed with handcuffs and some little red packets of powder that had been travelling under his mattress. Shaun, who was sleeping next to the haul, reported that the police had 'very nice cameras'. I was too busy admiring the prisoner's new orange jumpsuit. We have had no further run-ins with the law so far but it is still early days.

At the moment we are still travelling north and we are currently in the mountains of Yunnan heading for Chengdu in Sichuan. Unfortunately since we arrived in China we have been having some trouble viewing and accessing this blog (or anyone's blog -3 guesses as to why) so our posts may be a bit patchy but we will post what we can as we go.

M

Living in the trees

Sufferers of vertigo unite - you have a new enemy and its name is the Gibbon Experience in northern Laos.

Accommodation is (as you can see above) your standard jungle treehouse 60-70 metres above the jungle floor complete with running water and all necessary facilities.
Access is via a cable network that will take you on "zips" of up to 350 metres suspended up to 100 metres in the air. This is Michaela from above waiting for her zip ...
And with her curiosity more than satisfied ...
If for whatever reason (I must be losing weight) you don't make it all the way to the treehouse or platform with momentum alone then there is no other option but to haul yourself in commando style (to put this in context I am about 20 metres from the treehouse at top).
Of course to test your head for heights you first have to walk 6 hours along a dirt road in 30 degree plus heat then another 2 hours through the jungle where if you're lucky you'll encounter a few of the friendly inhabitants (Michaela is still learning to share).
While Michaela made friends with the locals I seemed to be attracting more than my fair share of insect life (I have a leech to thank for a lovely little hole on my left shin - healing nicely). I'm sure it had nothing to do with my particular perfume but the butterflies and moths were particularly interested in my shirt and hat.
We both managed to stay a respectful distance away from the local bears though.

Did I mention it was the rainy season?

We're now in China and have already been witness to the bust of a drug smuggler ....

S